The Impetuous Escapades of an Academy's Most Questionable Knights
by Farosie
Summary: Step aside Zelda and Link, it's -NOT- always about you! Make way for the gaggles of unexplored side characters as they stumble their way onto center stage! What shenanigans happen when you throw a handful of NPCs from each game with their own legendary dreams into an Academy for aspiring knights? Wander through the double doors at G.A.U.K.H. and find out!
1. Ganon and an Unrelated Fanboy (I)

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 **Ch 01—Ganon and an Unrelated Fanboy (Part I/III)**  
 **-:-:-{** Vol 01— The Knightly Way Thoust Finds an Assembly **}-:-:-**

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Aryll's scruffy traveler shoes clopped against the floor at a steady charge as she plodded along the hall, hands clutching the straps draped snugly over her shoulders. The racket produced by her soles ricocheted off the halls circa her stride, following like a noisy, unflattering theme song, as if to say that was the perfect musical accompaniment to her madcap moving self, but she didn't care. She knew no one would be paying attention to her anyway, stupid freshman girl with no Hyrule street creds— if they had, she was sure they'd be scared off by that oh-so-charming lynel scowl gracing her features. Too bad she couldn't get respect just by creasing her brows at people. Unlike someone else she knew.

Not that there was anyone around to behold her brash state anyway. It was unholy Hylia early after all and the Academy was predictably empty, with nothing but her solitary step to meet its towering ivory halls and arrays of royal embroidered draperies. The place was, just as she'd heard, monstrous in scope, to such a degree that she was sure she could stack her room ten times upwards before it would reach the immediate ceiling, and then she could bet another fifty times after that up to the Academy roof. And that was just going up; the stretch of never-ending halls after every corner turn was giving her a migraine that made her wonder whether she'd stumbled into some castle type version of the Lost Woods (wouldn't be the first time she'd stumbled into some random dimensional space after all… what could she say? She had an almost impressive knack for getting herself into troublesome spots.) Suffice to say she was half-convinced that whoever built the Academy must've had vision-shrinking goggles stuck to their face when they drew up the plans, well either that or it was built by a Hinox. Still, she wouldn't let herself be daunted by such a thing as mere scope alone. No chance, no way. Not with the image of a certain somebody lapping her in a score of side-hops were she to let herself get knocked down a pace. No, she had a standard to beat after all, which meant nothing was going to intimidate her. Not the pillars towering over her from a height ten times as tall as she'd ever be, not the white marble knight statues poised above her in their immortalized grandeur, nor the aisles of emblazoned noble portraits raining their silent judgements upon her from up and down the hall. She stared back at them as if to burn holes in their judgmental gaze with her eyes.

"What're you looking at?!" she snapped. "I know exactly what I'm doing you know!"

This wasn't a lie. After all, it was upon her foot-stomping insistence (though grandma had to make sure the floor to her room was still intact after the pediatric assault she gave it—wouldn't be the first time the floor to her room fell through after all), she'd managed to make it here today on her own! Sure, she was a teensy half hour behind schedule since she'd gone to the wrong wagon stop and ended up on a guided tour of every quadrant of Castle Town Square, scrunched between all the screaming Funday School kids pulling on her hair until she was convinced she'd go as bald as grandpa Sturgeon (she'd heard he was on staff at the Academy—dear Farore did she hope she didn't have him) but here she was finally, shabby hair still miraculously intact! She proceeded to place her hands on her hips and laugh like she'd bested a horde of Darknuts, as if she were some Legendary Champion with the repute of a Hylian Rockstar. Heck, no pretending about it—she was a Rockstar! Except she was, you know, laughing alone in an empty hallway because she was late to her freshman orientation. The laughter fizzed out like air deflating from a balloon and she slapped a hand to her forehead.

Navigating the school without a map would be easy baked fruit pie…that was what she had decided stubbornly upon passing the hefty stack of Academy maps in the lobby on her way in. She wouldn't need a map. She shouldn't need a map. Yet the portrait of Ganondorf with the lumpy square nose and crooked mouth going halfway off his face looked like he disagreed, smirking down at her with his lopsided grin as she passed him for the third time in the past twenty minutes.

"Shut up!" she called up to him. "You look like an overcooked potato head on fire thanks to whatever blind five year old painted you! What're you gonna do, shoot lasers at me out your one eye?"

He smirked back at her in silence.

"Haha, that's what I thought!" She laughed, then groaned when she realized she was talking to a portrait.

Why the heck was a portrait of Ganondorf even there? It seemed to be centered on a set of double doors (she vaguely wondered how the doors would open with the portrait centered on the doors like that, and then it occurred to her that maybe the doors weren't meant to open.) Her eyes flicked up to catch the five-foot wide sign above the door. MONSTROLOGY it said in bold, you-must-have-exceptional-observation-skills-not-to-notice-this-earlier text. Her brows shot up in a sudden but familiar surge of irrepressible curiosity, and two brisk steps delivered her fingers onto the slick moblin-headed doorknob. It couldn't hurt to take a peek, right? Her hand answered with a twist of the metal knob before her mind could—not that it made a difference, the knob didn't budge. She whined in disappointment. Of course it'd be locked. Half the school was probably still locked up this early. If she wanted to snoop, it'd have be in the midst of hustle and bustle later on.

She leaned in with her eye against the open sliver between the two doors, hoping to catch a glimpse of something on the other side, but it was blacker than her basement had been after that one time those thieving rats stole all the lanterns in the house. Oh well, there was an assembly somewhere in the building calling her name after all.

Ganondorf was giving her the evil eye again with his single eye on sideways, and she glowered with her two eyes at his one. She was convinced that something was off about the painting, but couldn't tell if it was just because his nose had ten nostrils and went up higher than his squiggly bangs of fire hair.

"I don't suppose you have directions to the auditorium to give?" she asked, half expecting a response, and then feeling stupid when she was hit with the poignant kind of silence you get when nobody laughs after a joke.

Admittedly, it was probably true she should've picked up a map. But, she had a perfectly valid reason for opting out, courtesy of her grandmother's habitual dinner advice. Grandma loved to give her favorite two grandkids tidbits of moral advice whenever they'd come sniffing around for their favorite of her scrumptious soups. On one such night leaning over her pot of pleasant pleas for the nose and soul, she'd called out, _'Ary, child, don't ever go around taking things like they're free, dear. Going into people's houses and taking anything lying around is bad, you remember that alright, dear?'_ Knowing her grandson was in earshot behind her as well (or more accurately, nose range) she'd went on, _'Link, you tell your sister too.'_

Link had turned and flashed Aryll a dubious grin. _'That's right Ary, don't do it.'_

Aryll had shot back a wolfos glare, and spat a grape seed at him over their grandmother's head, communicating in the kind of way only siblings could understand.  
 _Don't give me advice you don't take yourself!_

He'd eyed her back smoothly, maintaining his poker faced smile over an emphatic sip of Lon Lon Milk.  
 _'Now listen here,'_ grandma chimed with her hands over the pot. _'Remember there was that one hooligan who tried to shoplift in town and everyone started calling him THIEF all the time, who was that again?'_

 _'No idea,'_ said Link.

 _I bet it was you_ , thought Aryll.

 _'Well, I won't have that happening to any of my grandkids. You understand, dearie?'_ She was of course, looking at Aryll in that way that irritated her, as if _she_ were the problem child in the family.

 _'Don't worry grandma, **I** don't do that sort of thing.'_ She watched as her emphasis of the word 'I' sailed right over her grandmother's smiling head into her brother's open ear. All it earned her was a low chuckle on his way out the door.

 _'Bye dear!'_ Grandma would call after him. _'Make good decisions!'_

Make good decisions! Here was a good decision, beat the unholy Hylia out of her brother! What would he have done with the map anyway, probably fold it into an origami loftwing and toss it into a random pot somewhere. It's not like he would've actually used it. Well, if he wouldn't need one, neither would she!

She caught her reflection in the panoramic glass wall between her and an umpteenth courtyard. Then she crossed her arms and flicked her chin up. "You see, brother?" she spoke, addressing her reflection as if it were him. " _I_ , am not like your average freshman, having to rely on an, ahem, stolen map to get around." Her reflection grinned approvingly back at her, until her imagination decided to kick in and replace it with an image of him instead. His image spoke back seemingly outside her control, leaning towards her on the flip side of the glass with a derisive snort.

 _'Oh you're no average freshman, du—mmy. Even the average ones were smart enough to realize they were supposed to take a map, since they were put out specifically for newbies like you who don't have a clue where they're going. That's obvious to anyone with half a brain. Isn't that why they're at the assembly while you're…out here, talking to an imaginary vision of me in your head?'_

"Say that again, you—" she slammed her palms on the glass as the vision flickered away and her irate self returned to stare back once again. "Fine then!" She bellowed as though he could somehow hear anything she was saying. "I'll just go back and get one of those Dindarn maps!"

This was easier said than done however, since she knew trying to retrace her steps to the entrance was more likely to land her in the Academy's dumpster shoot or worse, knowing her. The last time she'd tried retracing her steps through a wax museum of moblins, she'd wound up dunked into a cart of liquid wax in one of the storage rooms. Luckily though, she'd come prepared this time, for she'd brought along a secret weapon meant exactly for a situation like this.

She slung her backpack against the floor and beamed down at the round, fluffy face of her trusty piggy backpack before unzipping the top and fishing her hand around the padded interior. "AH-HA!" she exclaimed, as her fingers closed on something cold, glossy and round. She withdrew her arm and out came a smooth, chestnut ocarina. She grinned and gave it a smug one-handed toss in the air, congratulating herself on having had the foresight to snag this hidden beauty from her brother's stash of abandoned collectibles—abandoned since he now kept a spiffier, newer Ocarina on hand. As if he'd miss this ancient thing. More importantly, a quick song on the Ocarina would summon her trusty friend Zeffa and he'd fly her to wherever she wanted (well, relatively trusty, when he wasn't stalking fish in ponds or giving her neighbor Joel a five hundred foot free-fall drop over death mountain for fun. The last time she'd called for him, he'd dove down halfway to their destination at the ever tantalizing scent of raw fish, dropping her directly in a basin of fresh Hylian Bass at the market. Heck, she'd had to work at that stall for free for a week to pay off the fish!) but other than that, he was no less reliable than her grandma when trying to distinguish Aryll's socks in the laundry from her brother's. Zeffa could easily drop her off back at the Academy entrance so she could pick up one of those lame maps. All she needed to do was get outside.

She searched the panoramic glass wall for a door, and tutted when she didn't see one. It seemed the Hinox who built the place wasn't a fan of fresh air disturbing his academic naptime...or perhaps not, since high up along the glass wall was a row of consecutive open windows. Of course, unless she had a spiffy pair of Rito wings hidden under her piggy backpack somehow, those lofty windows weren't going to do her much good.

She tutted again, moving along the glass extending the length of the hall. How could that ding-dong Hinox have not built a door in all this glass facing the courtyard? She was contemplating this peculiarity, when she was hit by a sudden flash of genius (she did get those now and then). Just earlier when she'd strolled through the entrance to the school looking like a veteran knight who knew what she was doing (and not like some sloppy newbie klutz) a gaudy looking blue diamond crystal had flashed overhead the door just before it opened. (They didn't have motion sensitive doors where she was from, but she had learned that Lanayru tech operated on its own eccentric frequency of Hyrule. Though the motion sensitive doors were less freaky to her than the robot horse her brother had brought home one time.) She was certain one of those gaudy blue diamond switches was hiding somewhere in the hall, and as her eyes scanned along the glass, she found that she was right, and congratulated herself with the victory dance she'd been practicing in front of Zeffa while he'd stalk the pond fish. Then she realized the switch was as impossibly high up as the open windows, sitting just below one of them like the crown jewel in charge of the hall, taunting her from its untouchable perch. She swore to Din.

"Oh screw you school Hinox!" How was anyone supposed to reach the Dindarn switch all the way up there? If she didn't know any better, she'd almost think they didn't want anyone to hit it! Not that she was giving up—oh no, (she wasn't the give up and die type at all) nay she was that quality rare breed of knight that wouldn't stop to think before challenging an unbeatable running man to a race nonstop until she won! Oh yes, that switch didn't stand a chance. Heck, if it was motion sensitive, she wouldn't even have to hit it— just throw something in range. She just needed something small and easy enough to propel. What did she have in her backpack? Some fleet-lotus notebooks from Stockwell's (they were doing an organic notebooks promotion), an empty jar (always handy), a green hat courtesy of her grandma, her telescope of a thousand uses… she glanced at the Ocarina in her hand, small and round like a sturdy oval ball, and glanced up at the switch. Surely it would survive if she threw it, right? After all, one time a real bombchu had zipped off and blown up with it in its mouth, and she'd still found it afterwards laying on the ground good as new without so much as a tooth mark. She figured whatever the heck it was made of could survive a room full of angry Bombarossa. As if it couldn't survive a measly encounter with some gaudy blue switch.

She sucked in a deep breath as if she were some star knight stepping into an arena for a big tournament match, and then patted the Ocarina as if to wish it good luck. "You got this," she whispered. Then she drew her arm back and flung it up as far and high as she could.

It hit the glass barely halfway up the wall from the switch, and then came tumbling down to the floor like a peahat with its propellers chopped off. She scowled, and for an instant as she stepped towards the glass wall and bent down to retrieve it, her imagination projected the image of her brother into the glass again. He stood over her with riddled amusement in his folded arms, and a snicker in his widened cheeks.

"Nobody asked you!" she snapped turning from the wall, tossing the ocarina between her hands as she mused. Her throw was pathetic, but all she needed was a way to propel it upwards with more force. If only she conveniently had something like a supremely powerful home run bat. Oh wait, she thought with a smirk, she had something infinitely better. It was time, she realized, to get THAT out.

She slipped her piggy backpack off again and searched the interior, her face brightening like a pirate retrieving his one true treasure as her hand fell upon its quarry. Here it was: her ultimate weapon. She brushed away the sneeze-inducing dust on the cylindrical brass instrument in her hand, wiping clean the optical lens that flared out on one end. This was her trusty telescope, her ever so reliable partner in arms. Supposedly it was made from a steel as durable as a Dodongo's stomach (or at least that was what the battleship game guy, Salvatore, had told her when he had given it to her as a game prize). Despite its value constantly being questioned by those ignoramuses who couldn't seem to grasp its greatness, she knew its true worth to be greater than even that of Princess Zelda's tiara! After all, those fools didn't know anything about her telescope's thousand uses! Of course she didn't know them all either being as she'd only come up with about seventeen of them so far, but that was besides the point. At present, use number thirteen was a home run bat superior to any you could find across Hyrule. She used to play battleball (a game with a story for another day) with her cousin Sue-Belle using her telescope as a bat, and after sending a few dozen energy balls crashing into grandpa Sturgeon's study from a mile away, she'd decided her telescope's signature smash move had enough force to send a miniblin to its death on the other side of Hyrule.

She clasped both ends and pulled, extending its length to the fullest until it gave that satisfactory snap into place, and she beamed as if the sound of that gave her more peace of mind than hearing the song of healing.

"Batter up!" she exclaimed, tapping the floor twice with her telescope, and leaning in with her foot. She tossed her Ocarina directly up high into the air, and with a cursory glance at the switch, drew her telescope back with both hands, and moved in with her signature patented ultimate telescope smash as the Ocarina raced into range (or the junior, less powerful version of her smash so she didn't break the window). Her eye saw them briefly align, and then—

"—what are you doing?"

She yelped at a sudden voice behind her, and with it a jolt of surprise traveled up her arm like an extra surge of force at the instant her telescope contacted the ocarina, sending the path of her swing a centimeter higher than she'd been aiming and invoking the full force of her telescope smash. This may have not been a big deal were it not that the adjusted angle shot the ocarina straight clean out the open window above the switch like an arrow firing off at breakneck speed, off to satisfy its newly discovered yearnings to explore the far reaches of Hyrule. Farewell thy fools, it would've called out could it speak as it flung out of sight, I'm freeeee!

Aryll's mouth fell open as it was swallowed by the sky, and she shrieked like a mother that had just watched her pet cat bust wings and zoom into a beehive. Who knew where in Hyrule her Ocarina would land?! What if it clucked some poor unsuspecting Hyrulean on the head and they died on the spot?! It could break her Ocarina! I mean sure it could survive an explosion, but a Goron's head for example, she wasn't so sure. And then if her brother found out it was broken, well, that would be a whole separate issue…

She grumbled, pacing back and forth as she muttered about the most logical solution to this unforeseen dilemma under her breath. "…a deformed potato, maybe, full of holes would do it…" came her incoherent mumbling, "…as if he'd notice the difference…"

"As if who'd notice the difference?"

Aryll flinched as that same voice that had startled her earlier came back to startle her again, and she whirled her head around to catch sight of its host. She found, standing barely a few feet from her, a young boy staring wide eyed as though he were witnessing an act straight out of the crazy repertoire of a Gorman Troupe performance.

"YOU!" she snarled. He flinched and yelped like an unlucky deer getting its hair blown back by the roar of a lynel. "YOU made me lose my Ocarina!"

The boy flung his hands up in shield and squeezed his eyes shut as if at the mercy of some deranged warlord. "P-please don't hex me!" His voice quivered like a gong, dissolving Aryll's budding rage into a peevish bemusement. Was that all it took to scare him? What a strange kid.

The boy opened a tentative eye, and taking in her idle albeit vexed stance before him, heaved a sigh of relief, as if deciding she were safe to speak to after all. "S-sorry, it's just I wasn't sure…" he rubbed the nape of his neck as a sheepish grin sprouted up his cheeks. "…you're…not a witch, are you?"

Aryll spat the imaginary milk she'd been drinking into his face. Exactly how delusional was he? How did she even look remotely like a witch? I mean sure, she had dyed her hair black for completely unrelated reasons he didn't need to know about, but that was about as far as any resemblance went. (Not even her grandma's friends whose memories were about as sturdy as a chest sitting on a tree branch would ever mistake her for a witch. A talking doll? Yeah. An oversized bird wearing a wig? Sure. A cosplaying moblin? According to her brother's distorted vision. But a witch? Unlikely.) There was nothing on her particularly witchlike unless telescopes had replaced wands in the witching world. Clearly, the kid was just of the stupider sort. "Really, a witch?" she drawled. "Do you see a pointy hat anywhere?"

The boy pointed to her bag, in which a green pointy hat stuck out of the zipper like a flagrant tongue. Aryll swore to Din under her breath. Why had grandma packed that stupid hat anyhow? "That's not a witch's hat!" She hastened to shove it back into her bag before he could think much about why she had it, but it was too late. The boy stared after it, and Aryll could almost feel the unwanted dots connecting in his head.

"Hey, that hat looks just like the one HE wears!"

She stiffened as if a stag beetle had suddenly crawled into the space between her toes (she'd find those things scuttling around the floor of her brother's room sometimes, and was half convinced he was hiding a nest of them under his bed, along with an entire secret hideout…) Nevertheless, she'd undergone secret training in direct anticipation of this kind of question! Those bothersome tourists in town with noses too big for their heads finally had a use—it was time to put the efforts of her training using their pestering encounters with her to the test!

"Who?" She drawled with her award winning disinterest (though it was a mere parody of her brother's).

"Oh, you know who, I mean THE Link!"

"Yeah, what of it?"

The boy studied her with a quizzical look in his eye, and her face twitched ever so slightly under the scrutiny of his gaze (she was glad for her giant fake coke bottle glasses). A cow head was sticking out of the wall above his head for a reason she didn't question at the time, and she busied herself staring up at it, silently willing it to moo. Where was a good distraction when you needed one?

"Can it be that you…" he started.

Aryll tensed. _Please, please don't figure it out._ She stared up at the cow head, half wishing it were a deity that could grant her plea to shut him up.

"…are a huge fan of Link, and like to cosplay as him?" he finished, his face lighting up like a child on Christmas Eve.

Aryll's jaw dropped. As she stood there like a statue with a broken mouth hinge, the boy began to hop around like a dog who'd found his lost brethren.  
"No!" She shouted a little too loudly in response.

"ME TOO— oh." The excitement died from his face like a deflated balloon.

Aryll stood with an unvoiced groan like a bombfish burrowed in her throat. Oh great, just great! Of course the very first person she'd meet at the Academy would just HAVE to be one of HIS fanboys. She gave him a leery, judgmental look akin to the ones her grandma's friends made at her whenever she'd bolt into the house and slam the door shut to escape another angry beehive. What was this weirdo doing out in the middle of the hall by himself anyway? His startled eyes peered out beneath a head of blond mushroom cut hair, and (in her first good look at him since he'd appeared behind her unannounced) she stared with a judgmental intensity that caused him to glance away in conscious embarrassment. So… this was what her brother's fanboys looked like (she'd half wondered whether they'd be a mob of his look-alike clones, or perhaps a slobbering race of creepy, stalkerlike shadow minions of their own kind) but this was good news, now she could make a mental note of who to avoid later.

"O…kay then," he raked a hand through his hair and emitted an awkward laugh. "So, what's your name then?"

 _No way I'm telling you._ She turned briskly on her heel and strode away down the hall.

"Hey!" he called after her. To her irate dismay, he quickened his step until they were marching in parallel.

 _Stupid Link Fanboy_ , she thought. How do I get rid of him?

"Hey come on," he started again, "what's your name?"

"Ganon."

"Ganon?!" he laughed like the goats Aryll had seen chortling at the ugly building shaped like a three-pointed green head in town. "No, for real! What is it?"

"Oh I _mean_ it, I'm Ganon, for real. So for your own good, you might wanna steer clear." She turned and unleashed her impression of a Ganon roar, though it came out sounding more like a bokoblin trying to gurgle with a cold.

He blinked, then cracked another goatlaugh. "Hey, you're funny!"

Her brow twitched. Great, now she was entertaining him. He wasn't supposed to laugh!

"Okay then Ganon," he continued, "where're you headed off to?"

"The toilet."

"The toilet?" He grinned. "You mean Ganon pees? That's news to me."

"Of course he pees. You can't destroy the world if your bladder destroys you first."

His goat laugh sprung forth once again, fertilizing the budding irritation in her veins. "So, where you headed after that?"

Where would her brothers' fanboys absolutely not want to go? Maybe somewhere so boring it could make watching hibernating Gorons sleep curled up into motionless rocks sound exciting. Her brother would rather be forced to wrangle hordes of moblins in a dungeon than have to sit still for five minutes after all. Meaning if his fanboys were anything like him…

"To the library. I want to review the Academy's Governing Nondestructive Assimilation Hylian Relations Policy before starting classes here. It could take a while." There, that should scare him. Her brother would bolt like a deer from having to sit through reading something like that. She inwardly snickered as she saw him gape like she'd grown a second staldra head.

"No way!" he exclaimed. "Y-you actually like to read through school policies…"

 _Too weird for you?_ She grinned. _You're free to run at anytime…_

"…just like me?! I thought I'd be the only one here who did that sort of thing!" He beamed at her and she gaped in protest at the sparkle in his eye as he went on to rant in oblivious glee. "Knowing all the school rules and policies before going to class makes us more prepared as knights, don't you think? Although, I don't remember seeing a policy on Nondestructive Assimilation, and I thought I reviewed them all. I guess I could've missed a few though, I should probably go back and take another look. Besides, I was thinking about rereading the Retroactive Non-Admissible Attendance Policy or the Pocket/Dark World Evacuation Policy again anyway. It's comforting knowing the kind of security measures they've got in place now, especially considering the kind of incidents I heard happened here last year, like the negative energy flood that turned half the school into animals." He turned his wide grin onto her blanched expression. "Hey, which school policy is your favorite?"

It took her a moment to unparalyze herself beneath his beam of incomprehensible giddiness. How the heck was she supposed to answer to any of this gibberish?!

"The one about…Cow Benefits…" she droned glancing back up at the cow head on the wall.

"Oh, you mean Cow Manifestation and Integration Protection Practices?!"

Aryll stared at him. What was with this school?! They even had a policy about cows?! Good Farore.

"Yes…that." She spoke in a flat, deadpan tone.

"That's a great policy!" his elated tone came in stark contrast to hers. "After all, the decision to implement the cow policy in place of the previous bull policy has supposedly prevented further incidents of stampedes from occurring on school grounds! Like there was an incident I read about where the Bull Protection Squad accidentally drove a whole bunch of students wearing capes into the moat…" Aryll had the urge for a moment, glancing past his shoulder, to bolt past and ditch him on the spot. He couldn't catch up to her after all, right? She glanced from his blabbering mouth to his zipped and worn in boots, trying to size him up. There was nothing about him that seemed loose, with laces tied and belts buckled neat and uniform, he seemed pretty well put together. How fast do fanboys run? Could they possibly match her ability to race around a track carrying jars of honey with hordes of bees in tow? (She was a champion at this, according to her grandma when she asked her to gather ingredients for her energizing honey fruit soup.) Then again she figured, rabidly chasing your idol around could make someone unusually and inconveniently fit. She glanced at his shoes and grimaced. It was probably best not to take a chance.

"…and that was a much better alarm system than the bull roar which I read was so loud it caused some visiting Gorons with sensitive hearing to smash the floor—"

"—Look," she cut in finally, "don't you have somewhere to be, or something?"

"Huh?" He blinked, as though noticing some essential part of his brain had tiptoed off as he'd talked. He groaned, slapping a hand to forehead. "Oh…right. Yeah."

A-ha! Aryll thought, a chance to escape! Time to say adios to this wacko policy obsessed fanboy making her tardier to the assembly than she already was. "Right, so get going!" She swiveled on her heel. "Bye!"

"Wait!" he called before she could take a step.

 _Darn_ , she thought. He was as persistent as a morth. What now?

"Do you know where the auditorium is? There's an assembly for freshman I gotta head to there."

She grumbled under her breath. Of course he'd be going to the assembly too. Why couldn't he have been going to a fanboy meetup or something?"  
"I mean," he went on, "since you're heading to the library, you must know your way around. Could you give me directions?"

 _If I knew where it was,_ she thought, _I wouldn't be stuck here talking to you, now would I?_ "Can't you figure it out yourself?" She snapped. "You want to be a knight, don't you? How can you call yourself a knight if you can't even find your own way around?!" Her brow twitched at the recoil of her own words since they applied no lesser so to herself.

He frowned, mulling her words over as his fingers rubbed at the nape of his neck. "Well, I guess when you put it like that…" He started fumbling around in his backpack, and Aryll saw her chance at escape attempt number two. Surely he'd be too distracted to notice her covert movements sneaking off (she was a master of stealth after all. Back home, wriggling through ducts to slip into rooms she wasn't supposed to be in had given her plenty of practice with this sort of thing.) Slowly, she turned her back and crept away from his preoccupied self as he perused the depths of his bag. Her Sheikah style tiptoe got her halfway down the hall before she heard his mutterings behind her again.

"…I guess that map could still be useful after all."

Her ear twitched, and she stopped on its command. Did he say map? (Or was it just the forest fairies playing tricks on her ears?) It couldn't be…he had one of those Dinforsaken maps?

This called for a new plan. It was an irksome plan, but she couldn't let that elusive map get away. Using her ultimate Sheikah skills, her toes crept her back the way she came and pivoted her to face the kid with the sparkling, charming smile of the princess portraits shown off at the dentist. It was flawless! He'd never know she moved.

He frowned, glancing up at her from searching his backpack. "Hey. Weren't you leaving just now?"

Her smile twitched. "Oh no, I was just…heading to the toilet, but I changed my mind. You know, when you think you gotta go, but then you don't? Eheh…anyway…what was that you were saying about a map?"

He stared at her in a kind of puzzlement as his hand continued its search of the bag. "…you know," he spoke with a frown, "I could be imagining things, but I'm kind of getting the feeling that I'm annoying you."

Aryll's brow twitched. "Of course…not." She spoke between a clenched smile. "Why would you say that?"

"Look if you want me to leave, you can just say the word and I'll leave you alone." He turned and began to stride away, one hand still stuffed into the backpack. "Later, Ganon."

 _Oh Feisty Farore_ **,** she thought, staring at his back. She was gonna regret this. "Wait!" she called. "Did I forget to mention…I'm going to the assembly too? How about we head there together." _How about you hand over the map_ , she added in mind with a silent purse of her lip.

He turned and cast her another quizzical look. "What about the library?"

"Nevermind that. I'll read the, um, Governing Nondisclosure Destructive Admissions policy later. So anyway, about this map?"

"I thought you said it was the Governing Nondestructive Assimilation Hylian Relations Policy."

Damn this kid, he had to pay attention to the most inconvenient things. "Yes yes that! But anyway the map, you have a map don't you?!"

"Yeah I have a map," he shrugged. "It's in here somewhere. But why do you care. You've made it pretty clear that you think it's pathetic for a knight not to know their way around. I expect you already know where the assembly is yourself, don't you?"

She cringed like she'd poked herself in the eye. There was no way she was gonna tell this fanboy she was more lost than him and get dragged down to his level. "Of…of course I already know where it is!" she asserted this with a stubborn crossing of arms **.**

"Great!" he beamed, "So let's forget the map then. You can lead." He moved to zip his backpack shut as Aryll resisted the urge to slam her head into the wall. The map...the map! It had to come forth! (Alternatively, she could steal his backpack and run away, but she figured that was the lesser knightly option of the two.) It was time to pull something out of her magic bottle of tricks.

"Well...if _I_ lead," she spoke feigning nonchalance, "then you'll fail the…the entrance test then."

He stopped. "What entrance test?"

"…Didn't the advisor in the lobby tell you about it when you first picked up the map? Following the map to the assembly is part of a first-day entrance test all freshmen have to take, to prove a bare minimum of navigational skills as a student knight! You have to use the map you pick up in the lobby, and…and I can't help direct you because you can't have help from someone else, or it counts as cheating and you fail!"

Aryll bit the inside of her cheek to keep her snigger in as the boy paled and froze like he'd been hit by ice keese. "What?!" He sputtered, "B-but I didn't see an advisor in the lobby. Actually, I didn't see anyone there at all!"

"Well that's unlucky timing for you if you missed them while they were in the bathroom or something." A shadow crossed Aryll's features, and the boy gulped as she leaned in to whisper, "Want to know what happens if you fail?!"

"Um…you start the term with a bad grade?"

"NO!" she shrieked as he yelped and tumbled back. "You get kicked out of the program, effective immediately!"

The kid looked as if he were choking on a possessed acorn, and Aryll bit her cheek harder to keep from cracking into a laugh. "What?! A-are you sure?! B-but that's so extreme!"

"Well it makes sense to me," she crossed her arms, "clearly they want to make sure their new students can handle something as _simple_ as following a map to an assembly. Otherwise, they're not fit to be knights!"

"W-well, what about you? Don't you have to pass it too?"

"Oh, of course I already aced the test with flying colors earlier this morning, only I had to leave before the assembly started in order to take care of some highly important business for highly important knights, and by complete chance ended up here..." her fingers caressed her hair as she prattled. "Now, it's obvious you can't be as talented a navigator as me, but you still gotta get your map out and—Hey!" She opened one eye to see him disappearing around the corner, eyes focused on a crinkly paper magnetized to his nose. His head popped back from around the corner a moment later to pin Aryll with a queer stare.

"What're you dawdling over there talking to yourself for? You _really_ shouldn't do that sort of thing in public. Are you coming or what?"

Aryll popped a vein and very keenly resisted the urge to snap an insult back. How dare he call her weird! (She was perfectly exceptional!) But this was nothing to lose her composure over. It was a very simple plan according to the voice in her head. He had a map, she'd follow him follow the map, they'd get to the assembly where she'd proceed to impress the heck out of all the head knights there and make her own name, and then she'd never see this dopey fanboy again, the end.

Of course, another voice in her head said that wasn't gonna happen at all, but when did she ever listen to that voice?

o | O | o

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 **NEXT ::** Chapter 02—Ganon and an Unrelated Fanboy (Part II/III)

* * *

 **Author's note:**

The lack of basic formatting capabilities, indentation, font variants and size on here (even just a sub-header to enlarge a chapter title) is...painful. My guess is it's to prevent the abuse of it, but still painful nonetheless (moving a chapter from Scrivener to here is like moving from a hotel suite to a cardboard box, seriously.) I wish I could do some font shifts for the way certain characters talk, and insert a drawing for a scene every once in a while but alas, here is not the place for that.

That aside, a few notes about this story. I had the idea to write this seven or so years ago (I know, that's quite a ways back) but it ended up sitting in a dusty drawer in my head for a long, loooooong time (like they do). I finally decided to pull the concept back out, dust it off and see what my fingers could spin with it. Here I am setting it out somewhere to be read in hopes it'll make someone laugh and brighten their day. (If anyone's even reading this, 'cause part of me thinks nobody will read this at all. If you _are_ reading, I'd be glad to hear what you think!)

T.I.E. (The Impetuous Escapades) was meant to be purely a Zelda world parody initially, but it's been transforming as I've been working on it to be a little more serious in between the comedy—partly because I've found comedy to be more difficult to maintain in a compelling way (at least to me) than serious plot, which I am more naturally drawn to writing. The story is stuffed to the brim with Zelda references for those paying attention, but should be a fun read whether you catch 'em all or not. There are many, many, _many_ zelda characters from different games featured in this story (even some obscure NPCs from various games) but it will take some time before they are introduced. Link and Zelda _are_ in it, but they've been pushed to background characters for once—I thought it'd be a neat concept to focus on other characters that probably don't get much attention if any at all, plus it's interesting trying to consider how the top two look from the eyes of other NPCs—though L and Z _do_ have more prominent roles later on. The crossover aspect is neat to me, it's fun to think how different characters from different games would interact with one another, write them backstories and flesh them out, figure out who would be friends with who, that sort of thing. For the most part though, it follows the story of three characters (incidentally, each of these three originate from a different game)—it should become clear which three and why these three soon enough.

It's more K+ than T save for an occasional swear and a couple of things, but it's set to T just to be safe. The chapters can run on the long side (7,000-14,000 words shortest to longest) but the chapters arc and cut in specific spots, and usually there are scene breaks to help the pacing...except in the next chapter, (haha) which I do hope you'll enjoy.

/~/ Farosie


	2. Ganon and an Unrelated Fanboy (II)

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 **Ch 02—Ganon and an Unrelated Fanboy (Part II/III)**  
 **-:-:-{** Vol 01— The Knightly Way Thoust Finds an Assembly **}-:-:-**

* * *

In the halls of an Academy whose peculiar decor and mammoth size challenged the average definition of a school, a pair of flappy sandals and a pair of dusty boots drummed in awkward sync. There was nary a sound outside the clang of their shoes from hall to hall, and Aryll couldn't help but wonder at the pervading silence. Why the unholy Hylia, she wondered, was the school so empty? Outside their roving reflections in the glass panels along the walls, there wasn't a soul in sight, not even so much as an extra footstep echoing in the vicinity. Of course, six forty five in the morning wasn't a time anyone would arrive charged up in a feverish frenzy at the dawn of school the way they would to see a Royal Parade led by Princess Zelda in a wedding gown, especially considering classes didn't start until eight, but the distinct lack of people, Aryll had to admit, was still disturbing. In fact, if Aryll wasn't the exquisite knight she was that could remain calm in any situation, this might have been enough to unnerve her. At the very least, she wasn't entirely alone thanks to a certain blockhead that was keeping her company…then again, looks could be deceiving (her brother's charming smile was a prime example of that being as he was just a wolf in disguise) meaning there was no guarantee her companion wasn't some undercover moblin sent by Ganon to lure her into the gap between dimensions. She leered at the back of the boy huddled several feet in front with a rush of suspicion (she had after all, one time followed a tricksy keaton's advice about hidden treasure into a sandpit before).

Sadly, since Aryll had no particularly exquisite sense of direction herself (although she had an exquisite sense of many other things as a young student knight, including her exquisite sense of irritation at the overbearing layout of the school and the questionable tastes of the interior decorator), she could make no rhyme or reason as to whether they were nearing their destination the more they roamed. She did get treated to seeing a whole lot of cow heads on the wall every few corners for some unfathomable reason, far too many more of those blue diamond switches that were still far too high, and more portraits as special looking as Ganondorf the one eyed long nosed potato head, such that she wondered whether the interior designer was in league with the one back home that had insisted on decorating their island with cactus flowers that everyone stubbed their toe on every few yards. Still, it wasn't until they passed for the second time a strange sign on the wall beside a five foot statue of a hand that said WATCH FOR THE SHADOW OF A BUNNY that she started to think the kid's map reading skills could be worse than even the skills of the interior designer. The boy walked about the hall huddled over the map the way her grandma's friends huddled over Aryll's notes in the kitchen without reading glasses on (they insisted her sloppy handwriting was the issue but she knew better) and the wayward screech of his boots was starting to sound to her ears like nails on a chalkboard. Tap. Tap. Tap. Screech. Tap. Tap. Tap. Screech. This delightful music occupied her ears interminably.

Now, Aryll liked to consider herself a fairly patient person (especially compared to her brother) after all, back home when the pigs on the island would run amok, while her elder neighbors would chase the pigs around like headless cuccos, she would chase them around with a much more refined and knightly sense of composure (despite running twice as fast and shrieking at double the pitch). But, even someone with her superior level of patience had a limit. She was already on a short fuse thanks to an unholy Hylia amount of mishaps she'd had between last night and this morning on her way in to the Academy (after arriving late last night on a schooner in Castle Town Square, someone with the same name as her had stolen her reservation at the Stock Pot Inn, forcing her to sleep outside in the thundering rain, and that was before her money got stolen by a hungry Takkuri and thieves started popping out of the grass trying to run off with her stuff...and after that when she'd gone to the item check at the bazaar to drop off her luggage somewhere safe, she'd gotten the cruddiest compartment with a lock so rusted she couldn't be sure it was even a lock at all. Plus her breakfast consisted only of the apples that had smacked her in the head when she'd climbed a tree looking for a wagon to take to school, or at least the ones she'd managed to keep after being chased off by the tree's enthusiastic environmental conservationists). Suffice to say the way things were going had not left her in the most inspiring of moods.

And then there was the matter of her brother, haunting her omniscently. She could just imagine him laughing like no tomorrow at her continuous string of mishaps till he was blue in the face the moment he heard anything about it. _'Can't do anything by yourself after all, huh Ary?'_ he'd drawl from his intangible throne.

She'd been dying to burst through those assembly doors and make her grand entrance in front of all her new peers as an up and coming knight. It was bad enough being late to the assembly as she was (she frowned, wondering what punishment the school mandated for tardiness…nothing crazy she hoped, like being forced to vacuum the school dressed as a fairy or something). After all, she'd heard rumor that the staff around here was tougher than ironshrooms. Worse—at the rate they were inching along, the assembly'd be over long before she'd get the chance to bust in even with an apology! Her vision of a grand first impression was sinking faster than a Goron in water.

She glowered at whom she had to thank for this, her professional navigator bumbling expertly about like a wild bombchu. If she let this kid continue to navigate, she was half certain they'd somehow end up in the dark world with their heads on backwards. No, it was high time for an intervention to speed things along (besides, helping the struggling novice was certainly the merciful thing for a noble knight such as herself to do). Using her incredible Sheikah skills, she crept up (with the best of intentions, mind you) to his back for a quick peek at the filmy quarry beneath his eyes, only to have him leap from her path as though she were some demon attacking from behind.

"W-what are you doing?!" He clutched the map to his chest looking as though she'd just tried spitting fireballs at him out her nose, and Aryll inhaled deeply through her nostrils as though calming herself from doing just that.

"What's your problem?!" she snapped, "Clearly you need help, and I was generously going to offer my assistance by double checking the direction we're going—"

"—Are you crazy?!" Aryll cringed as his saliva showered her hair. "You said so yourself, if I get any help from you, I'll get kicked out! I won't be accused of cheating you know!"

She stared, feeling as though he'd somehow tricked her into stepping on her own foot. It seemed, she thought, watching as the kid clutched the map with the fierce protectiveness of a mother bear keeping hold of her cubs, that her spur-of-the-moment lie about a test from earlier may have worked on him a little too well. She should've known it'd be the slickness of her very own trick that'd come back to do her in. She sucked in the inside of her cheek, not sure whether to be frustrated with herself or impressed.

He slinked far enough away from her that a miniature enemy campsite could fit between them before returning the map to its all too familiar place beneath his nose. "Look, I've almost got it," he glanced furtively around as he spoke, as though suspecting an evil eye to be watching from somewhere, "but since you can't wait any longer, how about you do yourself a favor and head there first? You already know where it is and everything after all. Just forget me and go!"

Aryll's brow twitched. Ditching him was certainly tempting (if only her head functioned as a better navigational compass, but alas she had to admit she needed that wretched map after all) but regardless of that, his tone was ticking her off. _'Don't worry about me, save yourself!'_ he may as well have choked out dramatically like a martyr on the battlefield, as though to boast that _he_ were the honorable one while his lesser honorable comrades (AKA herself) ditched to save their own hide. Aryll was perceptive to hidden insults whether they were intended or not, and so in the name of her slighted honor she huffed, "...nope, _not_ going. Besides, when you're late to something, it's better to walk in with someone else than by yourself." That was true enough, especially when you were late to a private study session imposed on you by your cross grandpa, and you could hide behind your cousin who was used to deftly deflecting the pots flying around during one of his usual tantrums. Not that she was expecting any backup from her current entourage in the event the headmaster awarded their outstanding tardiness by throwing them both on the chopping block.

"Then do me a favor and _don't_ try to help. No offense but I don't need you causing me to flunk out on my first day." He raked a hand through his hair and shook his head. "What would father say if I failed?!" A shudder tore its way down his spine. "Maybe this test was a breeze for you, but _I'm_ under pressure here, alright?!"

Aryll scowled. _Pressure?!_ As if this awkward duck even knew the definition of the word _pressure._ He wouldn't survive a day in her sandals, waddling about with his eyes bulging, shoulders scrunching, shoes squawking…she could feel her annoyance mounting the more she watched, and a twitch made its way into her fingers as they felt the sudden urge to rip the map out of his hands and make a break for it after all.

That was when grandpa's face invaded her brain to impose some of his much-needed quality wisdom, a flashlight aimed up his chin for dramatic effect. _'Aaarrry,'_ he'd rasp (in his classy impression of a ghost) were he present, _'those lowly foooools whom allow themselves to be consuuuumed by their peeeeeves will have their sooouuuuls devoured by a nightmare that takes the form of their greatest pessssst of all.'_ (She knew whose smug form her nightmare would take, that's for sure.) _'Only a truuuuly excellent knight can dispel their gaaaalls before they take roooot in the souuuul.'_ She massaged her cheeks as his words trickled into her brain. _  
_

Though grandpa could've just been saying that to escape her fury for breaking new additions to her seashell collection, it was nonetheless true. She couldn't get put on the same level as those small fries that would let a bad start to the morning send them slipping into a grotto for the rest of the day. Nay she was _crème de la crème_ , that rare type of knight who could get splashed in a bucket of monster mucus without so much as a flinch (something she knew from experience in fact, no thanks to her brother.) There's no way she'd let some directionally-challenged fanboy get under her skin.

She sucked in a deep breath, and began her ultimate and highly advanced secret technique of _free-thy-mind-of-all-galls_ , an imaging exercise her grandpa had taught her that began with three hops, a clap of her heels, a jumping jack and a twirl before crawling along the ground pretending to be an electric eel swimming through a sea of bari, all while reciting a magic word of your choice (Aryll picked the phrase _'I like schooners'_ this time) at different pitches until any offending thoughts were banished from mind. All of this was going well and Aryll could feel her irritation dissipating like mist (along with her sense of what she was doing and why, but never mind that) until she twirled and found herself singing _'I like schooners'_ into the face of that one nearby person she'd nearly forgotten existed—nearly. The bafflement in his eyes three inches from her own startled her so much she tripped, and as her bottom hit the floor, so did her grouses coming avalanching back down upon her head.

He leaned over her, bemusement etched in his eye. "Hey, are you…"

She glowered up at him, resigned that this was her new lowest moment of the week—a fanboy about to call her a freak.

"…doing the Bolson Dance 2.0?!" His eyes lit like torches and she gawked as his boot kicked up. "I know that dance too! But you got the first part wrong, I think it's more like..." He began to shimmy and bounce like a scarecrow in the wind as Aryll stared up from the floor. While his foot flailed like an eel out of water, her eyes drew to the paper swaying between his fingers. It waved at her as though desperate to be freed from the clutches of this clown, begging her to escape with it safe in her hands...until grandpa's up lit shadowy face popped back in her head to set things straight. _'Aarrrryyy…'_ His voice moaned again. _'Dispelling annooooyance is a sign of majeeeestic eminennnnce…prove yourseeelf…'_

She scowled. Gathering herself back up like the pro knight she was, Aryll flicked her stray sideburns behind her shoulder, pinning her illustrious dance partner with the kind of smile a sleep-deprived host might give their particularly unpleasant customers at a drawn-out event. "No...no. That was NOT the Bolson Dance 2.0. _That_ was a highly advanced secret technique for dispelling annoyance."

"Annoyance…" he blinked at her, his foot still kicking the air. "So then something's annoying you? What is it?"

"Nothing." She stared at him as he flapped his boot. "Nothing's annoying me, see? My advanced technique worked. I'm an evolved knight. I don't get annoyed. Let's go." She spun on her sandals and paced down the hall.

He frowned, halting his performance mid-kick and ambling up to her stride. "You're still annoyed," he stated matter-of-fact, eyes grounded back on the map.

"Am not. What makes you say that?"

"You mean aside from your tone," he shrugged, "which is the one my old babysitter would use on me when she was in a mood bad enough that anything she tried to roast in our cooking pot would get burned to a crisp, your fists are clenched." He pointed to her balled fingers, swinging back and forth like charged pendulums.

Aryll inwardly winced, loosening her clumped hands. Since when had she been doing that?! "My fists are clenched all the time," she retorted, "it's perfectly normal." This was true…after all, your fists would be clenched too if you had a wolf in Hylian clothing for a brother, not to mention your teeth.

"And your feet," he went on, "do this thing where they smack the floor really hard, like they're trying to start an earthquake. My neighbor used to do that you know, he'd stomp around the neighborhood at two in the morning to wake everyone up when he was grouchy."

"What?!" Aryll cringed at her feet, suddenly conscious of her Bongo Bongo stomp. She softened it and bit her lip, trying to ignore the flush of her cheeks.

"If something is upsetting you," he jabbered in his profound wisdom, "it's better to let it out and share what it is."

 _You're more likely to survive if I don't open my mouth_ , she glowered. Dead freshman found burnt to a crisp in the hall didn't sound like a particularly good accomplishment to have under her belt on her first day after all. "I'm. FINE." She snapped through her clenched teeth.

He shook his head. "Wait a minute, I know what this is about…it's because I called you a witch earlier, isn't it?" He snapped his fingers as though he'd just solved the answer to the universe, and Aryll felt an anvil drop on her head. Out of everything thus far, that's what he thought had gotten her in a twist? What was he stupider than a bokoblin?

"Yeah, sure…" she drawled, "…and that would insult me, how exactly?"

"Well, you know there are evil witches around, like Kotake and Koume, and since you've got kind of a sketchy look about you like you're a scheming villain full of nasty thoughts, you might've thought I was calling you an evil witch, even though that's not necessarily what I meant. After all, the witches attending this school are supposed to be good witches…although I've got my doubts about whether that's true. I mean, I wasn't actually sure if you were an evil witch or not because I kinda ran into another witch earlier this morning that might have been even more evil than you—" he winced as though he'd bitten his tongue, glancing towards Aryll with the bashful grin of someone who'd let his dog poop in his neighbor's yard. "Oh, uh, sorry, that came out wrong. I didn't mean to say you're evil, even though you do call yourself Ganon, but that's beside the point, um…(should I stop talking…?)" Aryll was glaring like a bull that'd accidentally been kicked by a donkey, and he gulped...until finally she exhaled like a dragon expelling smoke out the nose.

"Like I'd care about something like that," she spouted **.** "Nothing you've called me is anything I haven't been called before. I've been called much worse too."

"Then…" he continued in his grand wisdom, "…could it be about that potato you sent flying out the window when I first startled you?" He fixed her with the same kind of baffled look she'd seen Zoras give Gorons when they bit into rock sandwiches, and Aryll felt her umpteenth jolt of embarrassment in the past five minutes as she realized how deranged she must have looked smashing a 'potato' out the Academy window with her telescope.

"Ocarina, it was an ocarina!" she huffed as though that added any more sense to the overall image **.** She groaned, realizing she probably _did_ look more like a freak than he did after all.

"Oh, is that what it was?" He frowned. "Why'd you knock it out the window?"

She fixed him with a curt glare, and he yelped like she'd slammed a door on his toe. Aryll had completely forgotten about the Ocarina that'd been sacrificed to the skies of Hyrule no thanks to his impeccable timing **.**

"…oh, s-so that was an issue, huh," he gulped, stroking his hair. "L-look, I'm sorry if I made you lose it. I can get you a replacement, alright? Or, maybe even something better than a replacement, I mean there's this new instrument store that opened in town that's been selling these weird stones called howling stones you might like—"

"—forget it," she snapped. "He won't take anything in its place. And replacing it won't work either, I thought about that already. Knowing him, his memory works in remembering the most inconvenient details, so he'll probably still notice the stupidest difference just by the scruff marks alone."

He blinked. "Who'll notice?"

 _The person more annoying than you are, who shall not be named,_ she thought. "Nobody. Look, I'm just gonna have to go looking for it later."

"Well I can at least help you look, I do feel bad about it you know."

"No thanks."

"But—"

"How about instead," she cut in curtly before her limbs could move of their own accord to pilfer his map and split, "you prove you can handle reading a map sometime before this century is over first." She delivered this expecting a snappy retort, and glanced in surprise at him out the corner of her eye when he fell silent instead.

"You're right," he mumbled in a tone slackening to half the pitch it'd just been. "I guess I'd be a useless help to you as a knight if I can't even pass this navigation test." His sigh, Aryll thought, sounded all of a sudden like a thousand year old dying sage, and she decided that even his earlier sighs which had sounded more like a Korok in a sauna hadn't been all that bad by comparison. He drooped like a wilting sunflower as he went on, "I enrolled here to become a knight, but I…I wonder if I'll be able to do it after all." As his shoulders subsequently sagged to the slow of his step, the steam came billowing out of Aryll's ears like her head was a screeching teapot **.**

 _Damn you,_ she thought, _why are YOU getting depressed, I'M the one having a crisis here!_

"Hey…" came his downtrodden voice again, "…maybe you should go on ahead after all, I wouldn't want to make you later to the assembly than you already are." He slumped against the high windows along the hall, and in his reflection she could practically see the gloominess permeating from his half-closed lids. Her own reflection formed a scowl, looking about ready to punch herself through the glass **.** _Nice going Aryll, future-to-be-knight-extraordinaire_. List of accomplishments as a student knight on her first day: got lost at school and then duped some awkward kid into a depression over failing some nonexistent exam. Yeah, that would look great on her upcoming knights resume (they'd be begging to send her on missions to save towns for sure). Either way, she had to admit even useless navigationally challenged fanboys like him deserved some sympathy. Besides, she wasn't the type to abandon any lost souls to the treacheries of the strangely decorated school hall. Being the noble knight that she was, it was her duty to knock him out of his stupor. Well, that and, she still needed his map. Now then, she just had to decide…should she give him her toilet mirror peptalk, or the overpriced store mirror peptalk?

"Hey. " She stomped her foot down in front of his face, hands on hips and feet anchored out like she was some sumo-wrestling boss. "Did you come to this school to be a Deku Scrub?" He blinked up at her, confusion etched in his pupils. She leaned in closer and barked, "Well, did you?!" He bolted upright on the spot.

"Um, I-I don't think so?" He sputtered through his teeth.

"You don't think so?!" She leaned forward as he inched back. "What kind of a wishy-washy nitwitted answer is that?!"

"I—I mean, n-no!"

"NO?!" The boy yelped from her screech as though it'd come from a gibdo. "Well why the heck not?! You're saying you're too good to be a Scrub?! How dare you be so condescending! Deku Scrubs have honor you know, you should want to be one!"

"I…I should want to be a Deku Scrub?"

Aryll scoffed. "Oh you do, do you…well TOO BAD!" she leapt into his face and he lurched to the ground, "because, no matter how hard you try, you'll NEVER be a Deku Scrub!"

"B-but," he quivered, gathering himself back up, "I don't want to be a Deku Scrub!"

"What's that?!" she towered like a Gerudo captain commanding discipline during training. "Stop changing your mind so quickly, it's disgraceful! If it's your dream to become a Scrub then you should stick to it and not be afraid to admit it!"

"B-but I—"

"—you're so close minded you won't even give it a chance to be your dream, huh? HUH?" She leaned into his face watching his eyes twitch like bugs flipped over on their backs, a snort hidden in her coiled lip.

"W-well, I guess I've never considered being a Deku Scrub…" He gulped, rubbing his legs to straighten the quivers out of them. "I…I suppose I should be open to giving it a fair shot…"

Aryll scoffed. "Oh yeah?! Well you're not QUALIFIED!" Each time she shouted, some of her spit flew into the boy's twitching eye and he flinched. "After all," she spieled on, "Deku Scrubs fly around by burrowing into flowers! Can YOU do that?"

His mouth dipped. "I mean, I've never tried—"

"You haven't tried, you lazy bum?! Where's your sense of initiative?!"

"Um, I—I guess I could test it out…"

"Don't you know anything?! Humans can't fly by burrowing into flowers!"

"I…I guess I can't do it then…"

"You can't do it?! What kind of half baked roll over and die attitude is that?!"

"T-then I shouldn't give up on flying by burrowing into a flower?"

"No, dummy, give up on that obtuse idea! You should fly by burrowing into something else!"

"Um, like a…canon?"

"Don't be insensitive you show off! If you fly over their heads faster than they do, the Dekus will think you're gloating and never accept you as one of them!"

"T-then what should I do?"

"You don't know?! How ignorant can you be?! Aren't you aware there's a thief on the loose who's been stealing cleaning supplies from all over town?!"

"What…does that have to do with anything?"

"Obviously, it means you gotta search high and low to get enough sponges to scrub enough floors to deepen your understanding of being a Scrub!"

"H-how does that make any sense at all?"

"You can't figure that out yourself?! Your incompetence is even worse than I thought!" Aryll raised her index finger and pointed it at his face like a sword poised in the finishing blow of a fight. "So you came to this school as a Dumb Unmotivated Narrow Minded Half Baked Roll Over and Die Condescending Obtuse Wishy-Washy Lazy Ignorant Insensitive Incompetent Nitwit Gloating Show Off Deku Scrub Wannabe Ordinary Pupil with no sense of serious purpose at all huh?!" She watched with a smirk as his mouth dropped lower and lower with each word firing off like another arrow into his no-doubt rocketing confusion. He gaped cross-eyed at her offending index threatening him an inch in front of his eyes as she bellowed on, "Isn't that right?! Isn't that right?! You can't deny it! Want me to say it again? How about we shorten it this time to just the first letters and make it a word to describe your sorry state! That would make you a D.U.N.M.H.B. R.O.D. C.O.W.W.L.I.I.I.N.G S.O.D.S.W.O.P. Or for short, a Dumb-Rod Cowling Sodswop!"

Finally, the hinge on his mouth seemed to have snapped to the bottom, and like a band stretched to the limit it snapped back up, jolting him out of his stupor. "A w-what?! That…that's not even a word!"

"Well it is now, you dumb-rod cowling sodswop! It's perfect to describe your dumb unmotivated—"

"No, no no no no no!" His voice was charged now with indignance, and his own index flew up at her face as if ready to fire back at point-blank range. "First of all, that is the most inaccurate and blatantly wrong description of me I've ever heard and second of all, I came here to become a strong and dependable knight that can defend Hyrule, not anything else you got that?! I'll become someone that can protect those important to me and my resolution on that isn't budging no matter what, there's nothing you can say or do that's gonna change that, understand?!" He was breathless for an instant, steeled for the long fiery comeback he was expecting next, but Aryll was yawning like she was watching the end of a theater act she'd seen a hundred times, and when she spoke again, her arms were casually behind her head, and her voice was blasé.

"…well, that's fine then. Glad that's settled." She dusted her hands off and the boy's mouth slackened open for a second round of stupefaction as she sauntered away, a swagger in her legs. She had to admit, when she was good, she was _really_ good. She'd pep talked those doubts so far out from under that kid's nose he hadn't even noticed when they'd been spirited off. Not a bad accomplishment to put on her list for the day if she did say so herself. Da da da da! She beamed in self-approval, feeling a large chunk of magma finally dissipate from out of her head. He was still staring dumbfounded at her back when she swiveled towards him. "Hey, are you gonna lead with the map or what?"

He pinched his cheeks to squeeze the lingering stupor out of them before striding over, a question poised on his tongue. "Y'know, I could be wrong here, but was that supposed to be some weird, backwards mind tricksy pep talk just now?"

Aryll opened one eye to pin on him. "What're you calling it weird for, you ingrate! You look at lot less like a dying snail now thanks to me!"

He blinked and released that goatlike laugh again, (through Aryll's ear still twitched at the sound, it was at least an improvement over his earlier depressed whinnying). "Thanks…" he breathed through the laugh, "…I guess I needed that."

Aryll shrugged. "My uncle used to shout up to me with that speech whenever I'd climb up a tree and get myself stuck in it."

"Oh yeah?" She heard a hearty chuckle seep from his throat. "Back home, I had this neighbor with a mean temper that used to come after me like a bear if I went to this spring in the forest after the sun went down. She used to tell me this story about evil monkeys lurking there to keep me out. I mean, I think she was just trying to warn me about the frights of the forest, but the funny thing is when she came racing after anyone with that furious look on her face, she was scarier than anything you could find in the twilight realm! She used to wrap an arm around my neck and wrestle it until I couldn't breath! Kinda like a big sister, in a way, except she was scarier than a redead."

Aryll's ever disgruntled lip cracked into a full smile for the first time that morning, and she burst into a laugh. "Oh yeah? That's nothing, you should've seen what my older brother used to do, he'd—" she stopped to bite her tongue. What was she saying?! She wasn't going to talk about him! Did her brain take off to Hytopia when she wasn't looking?

He blinked. "What about your older brother?"

"Ergh…" she mumbled beneath her breath, "…Dindamn my brain…"

"H-huh?" he stuttered, "…d-did you say h-he d-devours moblin brain?" The boy shuddered as though a skulltula was crawling up his spine, and Aryll pictured for a moment, staring at the horrified glint lodged in his eye, a shadowy silhouette of her brother with intestinal brains oozing down his chin as he slurped some slimy confection into his mouth. She snorted at the picture as the boy beside her stammered on, "w-what a scary appetite, h-he sounds sc-scary!" Her lips twitched as she resisted the urge to erupt into a laugh. Though the kid obviously had the ears of a fish, he was right about her brother's appetite.

"Oh no," she retconned, "I said, you…never told me your name?"

"Oh, haven't I?" He scratched his head as though realizing he'd gone all the way to school with his pants on backwards (Aryll vaguely wondered whether such a thought was grounded in experience). "It's Colin." He glanced at her like an employer wondering whether the promising help he'd just hired was really some yiga in disguise.

She frowned. "…what?"

"Well, it's just…" his lips turned to a pout, "…sorry for asking this but, you're…not _really_ Ganon, right?"

Aryll bit her tongue to keep from cackling like a great fairy. This Colin kid had to be nuttier than the chickaloo treenut butter her brother loved to smear his hands in come snacktime. "I could be…" she drawled with a noncommittal shrug, "...you can't prove I'm not." She bit the inside of her cheek to smother another snigger at the troubled twitch of his mouth. (It was almost as if, she thought with a giggle, he were seriously worried at the thought!)

"W-well…" he stammered, "…i-in the first place, why would Ganon enroll at GAUKH, the Grand Academia for United Knights of Hyrule?"

She brandished him with a large, mischievous grin as one of her signature genius ideas struck. Stifling the round of giggles that threatened to burst from her throat as she deepened her voice, she contorted her features into some semblance of what she considered to be an evil pig. " _ **Fool**_ ," she snarled, " _ **I came to GAUKH to -gawk- at all the stupid kids who think they'll be a match for me. I'm infiltrating to find out the strengths and weakness of my next generation of future enemies! First, I'll pretend to be a clueless freshman so all the students and teachers drop their guard. Then I'll befriend them, pretending to have loyalties and attachments while I gleefully plot to overthrow everyone. And then, when I finally set up the perfect opportunity to strike, BOOM! I'll nuke the school and then use that as a surprise springboard to take over Hyrule! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!**_ " Aryll cackled in the mastermind genius way her dopey kid neighbor Joel used to do while he stalked people in the bushes with his pictograph, but her laugh stopped abruptly, half because she thought she swallowed a fly and half because she realized Colin was trembling next to her like a frenetic mouse in the lair of an evil cat god.

"I-if that's why y-you've c-come here, th-then I…" He turned towards her inch by inch, like a clock reluctant to tick. "…I w-won't let you g-get away with your nefarious p-p-p-p-p-plan!" As he stepped towards her like a robot with a malfunctioning foot, Aryll had the thought to warn him about the small puddle of water beneath his incoming boot (there was a caution: wet floor sign behind him), but right at that moment she yawned, missing the moment where Colin slipped and wound up with his head at her feet. She bent down on her knees over his disheveled face.

"That was just a joke, dummy. Of course that's not why I'm here. I came to be a knight, obviously." _Keese Louise_ , thought Aryll, there was a such thing as too gullible.

"WHAT?!" Colin leapt from the floor like a triggered tektite. "You should've said that to begin with! Don't make such scary jokes! If I have a nightmare tonight about Ganon seizing the school and blowing everything to smithereens, it's your fault got that?!" His restless teeth massaged his nails. "N-now that I think about it, that could still happen for real! Wh-what if Ganon really does come here and destroy us all?!" Aryll watched his one-boy theatrics with the concern of a rock, and the blatant indifference in her expression blanched Colin's face to the color of sour milk. "D-doesn't the idea of Ganon coming here scare you at all?!"

"HAH!" Aryll thumped her foot into the window like she were whacking the belly of a Plasmarine beast. "In his dreams!" She whooped. "Don't you know…" She kicked off from the window and darted for the center of the hall, flinging her arms and planting her feet like she were posing beneath the spotlight of a stage built for chiliads of admiring eyes. "…I'll be the top knight at this school, just you wait! A legend like none witnessed before…" she beamed the way your average fairy child would when proclaiming their genius to an imaginary audience, "…they'll have heard of me all across the far reaches of Hyrule! Ganon will be cowering merely at the sound of my name!" A haughty laugh expelled from her mouth as she stood beside a giant balloon Kikwi which was for some reason laying on its back in the hall (she'd stopped questioning the interior decoration a while back following the cow heads) and she began kicking the balloon body with what would surely be her signature knight's kick. Oh yes, all of those great things were sure to happen! I mean, once she she figured out where the freshman assembly was, and apologized for being extraordinarily late.

Colin watched her kick at the balloon, erupting into another laugh.

"What's so funny?!" Aryll whirled towards him, abandoning the ballooned beast. "You making fun of me?"

"No no, actually…" he stroked his bangs, "…I think you're admirable. You seem like you've really got it together here, a lot more than me that's for sure. I mean, you're confident, prepared, competent, reliable, committed…" Aryll blinked, taken aback by the sudden deluge of compliments, and her foot twiddled against the floor in discomfort. "...I wish I had half as many qualities as you. No doubt you'll make a great name for yourself as a knight here in no time."

She bit the inside of her cheek reluctant to meet his eye. Well this was just peachy, now he was being far too nice. Where had that talent to annoy gone? She needed it back to stop the guilt works of having tricked him earlier from biting their way around her gut like piranhas. "W-well…" she began, feeling the need to return the compliment like an overdue book at the library, "...I'm sure you will too with your great skills in um…" she winced. Come on, she had to think of something nice to say! "…your…knowledge of all those…policies! You must be fairly knowledgeable and read a lot, right? That's sure to separate you from the riffraff at this school!"

"Yeah?" his voice jumped an octave, injected by confidence at her words. "Hey, I think you're right! That really could push me up in rankings huh, especially since so few student knights are smart enough to realize the importance of packing their brains with all the _awesome_ , untapped knowledge to be found in their under-appreciated textbooks!" Aryll's brows rose as his fingers furled into adamantine fists. "Yeah it makes sense, I can see it now. I'll be turning heads in no time at all, for sure, for sure!" She rolled her eyes. This kid was a hopeless simpleton in the end, the likes of which she'd never met. What a doofus, getting so carried away over nothing like that…

"And you." In his awakened state of fervor, he grasped her shoulders as though he were bestowing a mission of great importance upon her. "I can picture it now, I can see it!" He thrust his fist into the sky as if it was Gohdan's infallible fist punching the fates, "You're gonna blow away everyone at this school, and make it to the top!"

Aryll took in a sharp breath, clasping his shoulders back as though he'd sent her a telepathic epiphany. Genius! This kid was genius he was, the likes of which she'd never met! "Go on," she nodded her head gravely.

"I can see it now…" he rubbed his chin, deep in thought (or perhaps just because it was itchy) "…your confidence, wit, and loyalty will make you exceptional as a knight, earning you skills so strong and grades so high that everyone across campus can't help but marvel! You'll be a role model with many followers…and you'll teach me your expertise too of course so that I can keep up with you as a top knight too!"

Aryll was nodding as though she were listening to a lullaby that could cure any illness. So this promising child could tell she was destined for greatness? Somehow, a truth that eluded so many had become clear to him…what incredible perception he had! Truly, this kid might be of a far better quality than she'd initially given him credit. Perhaps she should consider making him one of her disciples.

"We can do it, we can become living legends!" his symphony of words surged on, generating a bubble of enthusiasm around them like a shabom comprised half of delusion and half their stubborn and inexpugnable willpower. "And then just imagine," he yodeled on, "they'll call upon us, the most magnificent and all powerful knights at the school, to take on the greatest of missions!"

"And…" Aryll continued, swept into the same fervor swirling about their shabom of novel logic "…give us the greatest privileges! Including all expense paid trips to other kingdoms like Holodrum and Labrynna—"

"And access to restricted areas, like Hyrule Castle, or the Sacred Realm, where only distinct peoples are permitted to go!"

"And be given our own backup personnel!"

"And the latest in top notch equipment, like Sheikah Slates!"

"Not to mention," Aryll bristled in her soaring excitement, "we'll get the greatest and most ultimate privilege of them all…"

Colin gasped. "…are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Oh yes," she was beaming like a lighthouse for her chance to behold the Triforce in person. After all, she could finally settle her bet with Joel that the Triforce was flat, (and make him hand over his exclusive photos of the infamous dancing blupee). "After all our hard work, it'll pay off and we'll finally get the honor of—"

"—serving Link!"

"Yeah! That'll be the ultimate….what?" She gulped upon seeing his face, and with it the magic bubble that'd been enveloping her popped like gum and turned to muck. His eyes were shining like the ancient coins Aryll would see on display at the Museum of Wealth in North Castle Town, and Aryll grimaced as she realized the direction the conversation was about to take, having witnessed it more times than she cared to count.

"It's the ultimate dream! If our skills are acknowledged as the best of the best, we've actually got a chance at being chosen as one of his underlings! C-c-can you imagine receiving orders from him and and standing in the same room…" He was babbling on, but she wasn't really hearing the words because the image of his mouth moving a mile a second as he said what she could only register as _blah blah blah_ Link _blah blah blah_ was giving her eye an uncontrollable twitch. _Nevermind—I take it back_ , she thought with a grimace, he was every bit the annoying fanboy she'd originally thought.

"…and can you believe it, he's a senior, HERE! At the academy. HERE! Did I say that already?! I just can't believe he's here somewhere, breathing the same air, and we're here, and he's here too! Did you know, he goes here? I mean, of course you knew, everyone who comes here knows that. Heck, he's the reason most people apply here, don't you think?"

 _Please let that not be true,_ she thought. It was more than enough trouble dealing with one fanboy, she didn't need a legion of them in her every class.

"What if," he gasped struck by another thought, staring at the floor beneath their shoes, "we're stepping where he's stepped before?!"

 _Then I give my condolences to the floor_ , she thought.

"Hey!" he shouted, the excitement still oozing out of his eyeballs as another sudden thought hit him. "Maybe if we're lucky, we'll run into him soon!"

 _If we're lucky, we won't,_ thought Aryll.

"Oh Nayru, I want to meet him SO, SO badly!"

 _No you don't._

"But then again I guess so does everyone, I mean, don't you?"

Aryll fanned herself as though waving fumes from her head. Much as she wanted to punch sockets into every iota of glee bleeding out of his mouth, if she was smart, she would keep her mouth zipped here and let him monologue to himself until he was blue in the face. Unfortunately, her mouth decided to rebel against her better judgement at this crucial juncture. 'Yeah sure', she had meant to force herself to say like gulping down bitter medicine with your nose clamped, but her throat gagged on the words and her tongue snapped against orders. "No. I don't." It spat with a will of its own instead. "He's not that cool. In fact he's not the least bit cool. Not at all!" The words came out without the permission of her brain, and then kept going like a faucet that wouldn't snap shut. "Actually, he's completely overrated."

Like she'd predicted, Colin went quiet with a sharp gasp like she'd said something so utterly blasphemous she'd be cast down into the twilight realm for it, and his mouth fell open for so long that Aryll thought a toad would climb out of it if he left it open for any longer. _Typical_ , she thought.

His head twitched and he smacked his ears as though rationalizing that he must've misheard. "Not that cool?! Overrated?! Are we even talking about the same Link here?!"

 _What other Link is there_ , Aryll thought. If there were other Links, she didn't want to meet them. One annoying to hell brother was more than enough, thank-you-very-much.

"Because I don't know who _you're_ talking about," he quipped, "but _I'm_ talking about the absolutely amazingly incredible hero who moves so fast with any kind of weapon that time bends to the flow of his motions! The one who single-handedly defeated an army of Darknuts with his eyes closed, and took out a thousand Lynels in under a minute!"

Aryll pursed her lip, fixing him with a stoic lift of her brow. Where the unholy Hylia did they come up with these crazy stories? I mean, a thousand Lynels in under a minute? Did Hyrule even _have_ a thousand Lynels? Heck, she'd bet her telescope it didn't. Some con artist was certainly laughing in an attic somewhere, making a killing spinning stories and selling them into the ears of any sucker on the street who'd pay a purple rupee to hear!

Colin, the sucker in question, was still going on with his street brand of absolute truths. "…the greatest knight in all of Hyrule, and a legend…" he boasted on, "…and he's only seventeen! How can anyone dare to say he's not the best of the best?! He's the pinnacle of knighthood, it goes without saying that he's of course also the ace knight of this school! Heck, they opened this whole Academy in his honor, didn't they? Someone as highly esteemed as him across Hyrule is so above everyone else that there's no way anyone should have any reason to speak ill of him, other than Ganon himself!"

Aryll, without realizing it, had clenched her fists so tight she thought they'd burst like popped octoroks. Finally, when she couldn't stand another word of the offending gobbledygook spewing out of his mouth, she whirled on her heel and spat like a salivating lizalfos in his face. "Okay we GET IT. He's the best ever at everything or whatever enchiladas you're cooking. HOLY NAYRU! Is he all you ever want to talk about?!"

Colin stared at her with the curiosity of a skullkid poking the hole of a floormaster with a stick for the first time. "Wow, you…really, honestly don't like him much, do you?"

 _You try having a celebrity for a brother,_ she thought.

"Weird," he exclaimed, staring like she had three horns sticking out of her head, "I've met some people with unusual opinions before, like ones who love jewelry made of monster fingers and dubious foods like desserts with lizards brain and bug eyes for icing and sprinkles, but this is really on its own level of..." he struggled, as though unable to find a word that could describe the height of bizarreness that made up her opinion. "...special."

If Aryll had fangs, she would've bared them so that his flawless eyeballs could get a good look at just how 'special' she was. He may as well have just told her that a Dexihand was growing out the top of her head! If only she had Ganon's red cape, she would whirl away from him with a final swish as if to denote that the subject was closed. "Look…" she hissed, eying the map in his hands once more, "…are we getting to the assembly or what?"

"Uh," he squinted from the parchment in his hand to the hall ahead. "Nearly there, I think."

Well it was about time. Aryll glanced around like a wolf ready to gnaw through the bars of its cage. "Well spit it out already," she hollered, her saintly patience from earlier having grown to the impressive size of a Darner. "…where is it!?"

"I think," he mumbled, still squinting at the paper, "I-if I read this right, it should be just down the hall ahead, past those double doors, but I—-"

Aryll's fervent step thrust her down the hall and through the doors before he could mutter another word. He bounded through the doors behind her a moment later.  
"I was trying to tell you to wait!"

"You call this an assembly?" she eyed the deserted corridor, high halls emptier than the all purpose bottle in her bag. They stared down the sides of the passage where ebony double doors ran its length in pairs. Of course there was no one—not a soul nor a sound—to be found.

"Weird," he squinted back at the map as she peeked through the crack in the nearest doors for a glimpse into what she figured to be an empty gymnasium (though ten times as large as the public one back home full of sweaty kids trashing the playground. She wondered what they'd be using this gym for...?) Colin was still peering into the map, almost cross-eyed. "I thought it said auditor… no wait." He was mumbling almost incoherently. "Maybe… audio…tourney…no…audience…track—" Aryll materialized beside him in an instant, finally snatching the map clean out of his hands. What, so now he'd lost the ability to read?

At long last, her eyes hit the map, and her mind exploded.

"What the unholy Hylia?!" She rubbed her eyes like they'd been infected with sweet shroom shampoo. Where there should have been legible words, the parchment was populated with hieroglyphics. It might've been a map of the school, but it wasn't any more readable than a drawing done by your toe.

Colin snatched the map back out of her hands. "What'd you do that for?! You know you can't interfere, I have to be the one to use the map and—"  
"—You call that a map?!" She was barking like a deranged moblin that hadn't eaten all day. "What's it written in, Ancient Hylian?!"

"Oh, uh yeah…" he answered in earnest, the rhetorical question sailing right over his head, "…although I'm not sure which era of Ancient Hylian it originates from…" he trailed off as Aryll's Lynel glare pierced his skull. "H-hey," his hands flung up as he stepped back in reflex. "D-don't get mad! The map was in plain old regular Hylian when I picked it up in the lobby. B-but then some crazy witch girl hexed it after I accidentally collided with her in the hall… (although if you ask me," he mumbled under his breath, "she should've been looking where she was going herself…)"

"Are you telling me," Aryll rasped through her teeth, temper rising like the coming eruption of Death Mountain, "that all this time, we've been following you, following a map neither of us can read?!" She could feel grandpa's face exploding like a bomb flower somewhere in her head.

"Oh n-no no!" He flailed his arms, as though to air away the miasma from her aura. "I've studied some Ancient Hylian, so I can read it…theoretically, I think…" the sweat trickled from his brow as the words spilled, and even he could sense he was only fanning the flames **.** "Th-the words are still kind of hard to make out, but I'm sure I can figure the map out if I keep trying…"

"When?!" she roared into his face. "Ganon's tenth incarnation from now?!"

"What're you getting mad at me for?!" The color in Colin's face was starting to flush as he caught her temper. "You're the one who said navigating all kinds of maps should be a basic skill of a knight, and all freshman had to take the test to prove they could navigate on their own without help or they'd get kicked!"

"Yeah, but I thought you had like an _actual,_ honest-to-Din readable map, not this Ancient stinkin' Hylian crap!"

"Why do you even care?! You don't need the map, you can go to the assembly at any time since you know where it is!" He stood mystified at the smoke rising off her hair, feeling her rage oddly misplaced. Who'd get so bent out of shape over a map they didn't even need?!

And then it hit him. Aryll saw a gleam of recognition reflect in his eye as they widened on her.

"…you… _don't_ know where it is, do you?" He spoke with emphatic retardation, as though waiting for each word to fully marinate before soaking into his head.

Aryll's brows elevated with only lukewarm concern. So, he'd finally figured it out, huh? Big deal, like there was any point to denying it now since his so-called map was first-class trash. "Yeah, and what of it? Got something you wanna say?"

Colin looked as though someone had dropped a sizzling buzz blob down his back. He opened his mouth to fire off, only to close and open it again ten more times due to having too many things fighting to be said at once.

"…If it makes you feel any better," Aryll scoffed, "It sure hasn't done me any good. I've sure wasted my time following you!"

"I've wasted your time?!" He roared like a Dodongo spewing fire after realizing some creature had been snacking on his tail. "Don't you try to turn the situation around! You…you lied to me from the start! You've been using me as a navigator to get you to the assembly this whole time! I'll bet you totally bombed the navigation test yourself, didn't you?!"

He sucked in a sharp breath as though another set of fangs had clamped down on his Dodongo tail, and with it a second revelation kicked him in the head. "You didn't…did you…?" he gawked at Aryll, "…you didn't make that whole test up?!" Her scornful eyes told him the answer, and he stared at her with a new kind of stupor like she'd gone from being a strange, one-eyed Oocca to an Evil Eagle. "H-how could you do that?!"

Aryll crossed her arms like a Goron Chief, deflecting his accusatory gaze. "Well It's not my fault you're more gullible than a toddler! It's pathetic for a knight to fall for something like that so easily! Even my eight year old neighbor wouldn't have been duped, how pathetic can you be?!"

He stared at her like she were speaking the language of chuchus. "Oh I'm pathetic?! You should listen to yourself, trying to act high and mighty when you're just as lost and clueless as I am!"

"Don't do you dare," Aryll hissed, "lump me in with a fanboy like you!"

"Oh yeah?!" he screeched, "Well better to be a fanboy than a two-faced liar! At least I've got knightly principles!"

"Oh sure you do, that's why you've been chasing your tail for an hour like a slobbering dog with a piece of junk taped to its face!"

"You know what?!" he snarled, a flaming arrow's length from her nose, "I take back everything remotely decent I said about you earlier. You're leagues from decent knight material—not even close to being someone who could be called a knight!"

"Well, neither. Are. YOU!"

They stood fuming at each other in the middle of the empty hall like Armos statues in a staring contest, two sore losers in a fight refusing to admit their own stupidity. Their glares shifted silently into a match of y _ou-blink-you-lose_ , and the cow heads on the wall spectated them, most likely as they thought to themselves, _what a couple of idiots_. The cow heads had glaring contests too, but at least they had the sense not to consume themselves so much with who won. It was kind of hard to consume anything when you stared out of a wall all day after all.

Finally, after a twitch tickled its way into both their vein-throbbing eyes, a fly decided to land on Aryll's cheek, and abruptly she smacked it before the pest could move another centimeter. (She had no tolerance for flies back home, especially thanks to cleaning off her brother's slimy mess of chickaloo treenut butter and courser bee honey from the door handles of her house—they attracted flies like magnets such that the handles would get so covered in teeming swarms of them that she had to climb through the windows of her house just to avoid those handles.) Then without a word, she turned abruptly from the damned fanboy creature and stomped away down the hall in her trademark bongo bongo fashion of stomp.

"Where do you think you're going?!" He roared after her.

"To the assembly, without you and your stupid map to drag me around in circles!"

"Oh like you're not just gonna get yourself more lost! You don't have a clue where you're going!"

"I'll be just fine!"

"Like heck you will!"

She didn't know where she was going, but since having been reduced to a Hot Head beneath her glasses, she didn't care. Her sandals thwacked the floor and her fists rooted themselves at her side, unfurling only to smack open the first double doors that approached the line of fire that was her eyes.

And then she froze.

"Hey!" Colin prattled behind her in the doorway. "What are you—" he stopped. Directing his gaze to follow hers, he stumbled back like a bumbling castle servant that had just accidentally overhead some royal, confidential secret.

This certainly was not the assembly they were looking for, but an assembly of a different kind; Life-sized sculptures of armored knights queued ahead to their left and right, creating a needle-straight center lane like a runway from where visitors could marvel as they promenaded. The helmed knights towered in a noble radiance along the rows, each with two posh blades in hand—one held to the floor, the other pointed in parallel towards opposing sides of the ceiling, creating an angled archway of metal and blades to reign over one's head. Weapon after weapon glistered with competing magnificence as one ambled beneath. The light cascaded in through the high, wide windows and caught the gleam upon the metal of each weapon, reflecting patterns of slivered light upon the floor. The entire room shone with a regal magnificence that would have thrust any normal, sane person down to their knees. Though the two that had entered upon accident could hardly be considered normal, they too stared down the long aisle in awe.

"What…is this?" Aryll asked aloud, more to herself than the one behind her.

"I—I think I've heard of this room from my Dad!" Colin stepped towards the statues with the bashfulness of a foreigner laying eyes on a rumored deity for the first time. He knelt to examine the pointed edge of one halberd where it touched the floor, eyeing the knight's stony grip on the handle. "This must be…the Weapon Hall!"

"…Weapon Hall?"

"My Dad told me, students come here to pick out weapons to use for class!"

"You mean…" Aryll chirped like a gleeful child in a toy store, "…we get to use these in class?"

"No no no!" Colin shook his head violently, as if trying to correct a grave error in her understanding of the fabric of the universe. "They're not for us! You have to to be given the _privilege_ to pick from this weapon lot! The professors have to _approve_ you as good enough to wield them first, which means…" he cast Aryll a patronizing glance as she strode ahead with the nonchalance of a visitor at the zoo, "...you're out of luck. Hey!" he saw her slide her hands along a claymore at the front of the aisle as though brushing a stray puppy on the street. "Don't touch that! We shouldn't be touching anything in here, this stuff is way out of our league!"

"If by _our_ league," Aryll glanced at him like a teacher correcting the faulty spelling of a kindergartner, "you mean _your_ league, then yeah. You should probably leave before you break something. I can understand if this place is too overwhelming for you."

"What?!" he snapped. "Me?!"

"Yes you." As she swiveled back to resume her promenade down glory lane, her eyes choked on the grand display that greeted them up front. At the head of the aisle, a body of marble white statues brandishing monstrous jeweled weapons and lavished in royal robes rose upon a stepped platform, ascending in a pyramid up to where a tall, intimidating old man reigned at the peak. Along the back wall a ways above his head, a heavy thick silk blue banner hung horizontally like a hammock from corner to corner with a giant spirit orb nestled in its center, the orb refracting light directly upon the hooded old man's head as though bestowing him with a halo of the divine.

"Th-this is…" Colin stuttered as though he might faint, "…the royal knights!"

 _Thank you, captain obvious_ , thought Aryll.

"And that up there…" he raised his fevered gaze to the statue of the glowing hermit at the top, "…a statue of Headmaster Rhoam, isn't it?!"

"It is?" Aryll glanced up with a flicker of curiosity. In truth, though she'd heard rumors about the headmaster (and his long, fluffy santa beard, which supposedly harbored the only softness he had on him as a person), she was yet to meet him face to face.

"But wait!" Colin's eyes darted in a frenzy about the room as though looking for his missing glasses. "...where's Link?! Why isn't there a statue of Link?!"

Her eyes rolled up to the ceiling. Best there wasn't one, lest it suffer the front end of her wrath.

"M-maybe..." Colin mused aloud as Aryll tuned him out, "...he was too important to be placed in the same room as all the other knights…(yeah, that's gotta be it…)" Aryll was busy eyeing the sole weapon in the grips of the old geezer at the top. Though it appeared to be but a thin sword, it sparkled with a whiteness that outshone all else in the room, transfixing her eye the way a dragonfly was drawn to the light. She ascended towards it instinctively, but Colin caught her elbow. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm getting a closer look!" She snapped from his hold like a child renouncing their least favorite babysitter.

"Closer look at what?! The statue of Headmaster Rhoam?! You can see it just fine from down here, can't you? We've got no business getting too close! I-in fact..." He glanced around in a nervous fit, as though afraid gohma would pop out of the floor to eat them alive. "...we've got no business being in here at all! I think we should leave before we get in trouble!"

"In case you haven't noticed," Aryll snarked with a roll of her eyes, "we've been deviating through the halls of this school all morning and haven't seen another living soul. Know why, genius? It's because outside the assembly, nobody's here! But hey…" she whirled on him with a snort from halfway up the steps, "…if you're too scared to be in here, why don't you do us both a favor and get on out." She flicked her head back as if to shoo him away while she continued her graceful and lofty pilgrimage up to the Headmaster with the white sword, until gracefully she tripped and tumbled down the length of the steps, finding herself in a heap at Colin's toes. He stood over her with his arms crossed.

"…you were saying?"

She leered at him with wolfish defiance as she drew herself off the floor. "You'd better watch your back when I become the top knight around here!"

"The top knight, huh? So…you think you'll be better than Link?"

"ESPECIALLY, better than him!" she snarled in fashion of Ganon.

"Okay," he scoffed, "I knew you were wacked out before, but now I _know_ you're delusional. I'll bet you can't even fight on the level of a bokoblin, let alone anywhere near his league!"

"Here's an idea," she whipped her head around the hall as another one of her brilliant thoughts took hold. "Why not put your money where your mouth is. Let's settle this RIGHT NOW." She thrust her arms out like an Aeralfos flaunting its wings and bellowed as an announcer would at a stadium. "Choose your weapon!" Her voice echoed at tenfold the pitch across the grand hall and Colin cringed at the height of it, glancing around as though afraid it might've set off some archaic dungeon trap.

"Are you insane?" He whispered in paranoia. "We can't touch these weapons!"

"Oh my," Aryll scoffed, "such a convenient excuse for you to get out of admitting you can't handle a basic fight with me! So basically you admit you're not on my level then."

"What?!" In an instant, pride overtook paranoia (from his expression, the thought of ranking below someone like Aryll made him sicker than a dog after a eating a trashcan of dubious food). "Fine! You wanna fight?! Then come at me!" His fingers wrenched at the stony ones of the closest statue, snapping a rapier from its grip. It fell easily into his practiced fingers, and his wrist swiveled with it snug in his grip, much like he were breaking in a new pair of shoes. He frowned as though it didn't quite fit before raising his gaze to meet that of his inane opponent, only to balk at her backside as she stepped before the gleaming white sword. "Seriously?!" he hollered up, "How about sticking to a weapon that's more on your level?"

"This is my level!" she called back from the top. Above her head, the stony figure of Headmaster Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule glared down upon her as though commanding her to scram, but she wasn't the type to let some statue scare her off. There was a stone plaque in front of the statue, and Aryll leaned in beneath the headmaster to read the engraving beside the tip of the sword. ' _It's Dangerous to Go Alone, take 'THE SWORD'_ she read aloud. 'THE SWORD', huh? Well, 'THE SWORD' was now going to discover the home it never knew it wanted in her hands.

"I'm warning you," Colin called as she reached for the handle, "This is a bad idea, don't touch it!"

"Oh yeah, well you're a bad idea! And yet here you are, so just be quiet." She snapped the sword out of position, and Colin screamed. The room blew up and Colin could feel himself being flung across the room to his death…or not? He opened one eye to see Aryll standing just as she was before, holding the sword, gazing down at him as though he'd been flailing over his own shadow. This would've been a relief if he hadn't suddenly been assaulted by her triumphant laughter. "You dope, what did you think was gonna happen, Ganon was gonna be resurrected or something?"

He glowered at the smugness radiating from her stance. "Maybe…" his hand clenched the rapier as he approached the foot of the steps. "…he HAS been resurrected!" He pointed the blade at her as she stood at the top of the platform, 'THE SWORD' gleaming lithe and light in her hand. "Isn't that right…Ganon?!"

Aryll snorted. "Are you kidding? I honestly can't tell since your logic is such a joke. Tell me you're not serious?"

"Nah," he tested the edge of the blade against his fingers. It wasn't as sharp as he was expecting. Kind of dull, surprisingly. "That's giving you way too much credit. You're neither strong nor competent enough to be Ganon."

Aryll growled. "I dare you to say that again!" She raced down the pedestal steps towards him, 'THE SWORD' poised at her back.

Though this may not have been the ideal time to admit, her experience with weapons wasn't all too impressive outside her uncle's idea of sword training by smashing pots with a wooden stick (unless you counted the times she'd killed the bugs crawling out of her brother's room with her telescope—that was use number fifteen for it) but was that such a big deal, I mean how hard could it be to land a blow?

Colin ducked as she flung past, whirling towards her with the perturbed look of a pedestrian who'd nearly just stepped off a cliff. "Would you watch how you swing?! My head could've ended up on the floor just now!"

"Duh, that's why it's a duel!" She swerved on her heel to face him again. "You've got two options, come at me, or run away! So which is it gonna be, fanboy?"

He sighed like her stupidity wasn't worth arguing about, then drew the rapier back and crouched as he slid out his foot. "Fine then…you asked for it!" And then he lunged.

They met, feet apart with converging blades at the base of the pedestal, both shouting to the swing of their weapons...and there was an extended moment of time just before their blades hit in which Aryll and Colin both fancied themselves actual knights in a real duel. _So this is what knighthood_ _is like_ , they both thought, in one long, misguided, glorious instant.

And then the instant ended as the rapier hit 'THE SWORD'—and the top half of 'THE SWORD' popped off like a snapped twig and flung itself across the room until it landed wedged into its choice of a brand new first class home:

The Headmaster statue's nose.

o | O | o

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 **Next ::** Ganon and an Unrelated Fanboy (Part III/III)

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

The beginning of much trouble.

This chapter was longer than I would've liked, but there's a progression to it that didn't seem right to split, and the first half would feel incomplete if I did. Plus, _Ganon and an Unrelated Fanboy_ is a three parter, and four parts felt like one too many.

Writing this chapter gave me hell. I've been tempted to trash it so many times, but I can't skip it because it's a needed intermediary chapter. (I've also become numb to revising it, so it was at that point where it just needed to be posted.) It's been through eight rounds of revision and I still feel it's the weakest link in the lot, but it's come a long way, and I hope it's still an enjoyable read.

(P.S. Chickaloo Treenut Butter = Chickaloo Tree Nut + Peanut Butter)

If you've got comments, I welcome them!

/~/ Farosie


	3. Ganon and an Unrelated Fanboy (III)

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 **Ch 03—Ganon and an Unrelated Fanboy (Part III/III)**  
 **-:-:-{** Vol 01— The Knightly Way Thoust Finds an Assembly **}-:-:-**

* * *

When Aryll was eight years old, her kid neighbor Joel had dared her to break into a monster crypt. The crypt was tucked behind the forest of mystery on their island back home in a place everyone avoided for fear it was haunted. Joel asked her to bring something back from the crypt as proof she'd gone in ( _Proof or it didn't happen_ , as he'd say). Though her feet quaked in fear of the monsters she thought to be spying from the shadows as she stole her way in, the only monsters she did find at the gravesite were the dead skeletons lying in half buried heaps of cold soil. The skulls looked too heavy to carry out, so instead she picked up a rather large and round wild black plant at the site. Fortunately, it was easy to pick.

Unfortunately, the plant turned out to be a large bomb flower. Immediately it triggered as she plucked it off the ground, and as her heart raced to its quickening flash, her furious feet delivered her to the cliffside where she hurled it down into the sea as far as she could. This would've been the end of the matter, if only upon opening her eyes there hadn't been an enormous royal schooner lazing in the water where she'd sent the bomb. She watched, gohma-eyed, as it combusted the ship into splintered halves that sank along with her slackening jaw.

Though the passengers had at the time been frolicking in town over at Gillian's Bar—lucky for her, _The Queen of White Wolves_ as she found out it was called still turned out to have cost more than everything on the island combined.

She knew from the moment the explosion went off she'd be in trouble. Long before the crossed arms and downward stares, the disapproving whispers, deafening scolding and endless grounding, revoked privileges and confiscated wildberry fruit cake, she knew. She remembered very clearly the feeling in the pit of her stomach, like it was her insides blowing up along with the ship.

It was very same feeling she felt now, 'THE SWORD' broken in hand.

Colin and Aryll both stared from it to the Headmaster statue that had suddenly morphed into marble Pinocchio. Like the calm before a storm, a moment of silence dominated the Weapon Hall as what had just happened set into their heads. Then like impending shower water a moment after the knob's been snapped on, came the deluge of panic.

"Ooooooooooooooooooooh!" Though Aryll was the one clutching 'THE SWORD' fragment in shock, it was Colin's groan that rang out across the hall. "I knew this was a bad idea, I knew it! I told you so!"

"I-it's okay," Aryll fidgeted with the splintered half. "W-we can still fix it. Do you have any glue?"

"Glue?!" he cried. "You want to glue 'THE SWORD' back together?!"

"Well do you?!"

"Why would I?! Of course not…wait, actually I might have some."

"Really?!" A pang of excitement colored her features, and then her brows rose. "Wait…seriously? Why do you have glue?"

He shrugged as he fished around in his knapsack. "I wanted to glue some motivational pictures up in my locker."

"Motivational…pictures?"

"Yeah! Wanna see? They're pictures of Li—"

"—just shut up and give me the glue." _I had to ask_ , she thought.

"Uh, you're welcome," he frowned, handing it to her.

She stalked briskly up the steps and stopped before her artistic masterpiece, the new Headmaster Pinocchio, hands on her hips. The broad reach of his robe rolled down before her at thrice her own width, and he glared down from double the height as though foreshadowing his displeasure with her behavior (Aryll could almost swear to the disapproval radiating down from those stony eyes). She grimaced, smacking her hands together in plea with a slight bow of her head. "Forgive me, sir! Allow me, to restore your nose!"

'THE SWORD' which was now better referred to as 'THE NOSE' stuck out several feet above her head like one of those high tree branches that taunted her with its apples out of reach. (It's too bad she didn't have a grappling hook to challenge 'THE NOSE' to tug-o-war.) Not that this was any problem for Aryll, she always got those high apples down one way or another, even if it meant getting a delightful mix of poison ivy, beetles, and bird poop in her hair. It looked like she was just gonna have to buckle up and do the same here. She patted the Headmaster's stone robe. "Please excuse me, sir." Then she stuck the glue in her pocket, gripped the man's arms and leapt, catching her foot on a stone fold in the robe to prop herself up, thus climbing his sculptured form like it were a stone tree.

"W-what do you think you're doing?!" Colin howled up in alarm.

"What'dyou think I'm doing?" There were enough stone crinkles in his robe for her feet to make use of as footholds, and she crawled up like a tree monkey until she sat cross-legged upon his head like a Buddha.

"Are you crazy?!" Colin hollered. "That's the headmaster statue! You can't climb onto his head, you could get cursed for that!"

"If you've got a better idea, then come up here and try it yourself!" she snapped. At this he gulped and hung his head, the coward.

THE NOSE, she realized in relief leaning over to clasp it a foot or so down, wasn't too sharp that her fingers would get sliced off from clutching it (the blade was surprisingly dull in fact), and she sucked in a breath as she twined them around. Colin watched with the nervous twitching of someone waiting for the start of an exam.

She was going to snap his nose clean off. On the count of One Lanayru Sun, Two Eldin Moons, Three Faron Trees! She wrenched at it like she was trying to get one of her neighbor's nutty pet pigs out of the toilet, but THE NOSE wouldn't budge anymore than Zeffa's head from a basin of fish. Was THE NOSE so attached to its newfound status as a part of the headmaster's face? (She had no idea swords could be such status climbers!) Well that was just too bad!

Meantime Colin, the helpful chap, was busy chattering on his fingernails. Aryll glowered down at him. "Are you gonna come up here and help, or just stay down there gawking?"

He trembled like she'd just suggested diving off a cliff. "I…I think it's better I don't touch anything…"

Aryll scowled. Some help he was…guess she was gonna have to do everything herself. Rolling up her sleeves, she whipped her always reliable rubber scrunchie off her wrist, wrapping it around the steel of the blade as a kind of grip. Back home, when the lid on a bottle wouldn't open no matter how she twisted and pried (like it was a conniving little creature bent on thwarting her every effort), she'd employ the help of this magic band to make certain her ten thousand amp pull couldn't help but snap off the lid.

She rolled her clavicles and cracked her knuckles like a seasoned brawler ready for a tournament fight, and the war-cry of a Lynel dislodged from her throat as she concentrated her force into one all-charged yank that lo and behold—snapped THE NOSE clean off—but in the process sent her spinning backwards off the statue and careening along the floor until her head thudded against the back wall.

She lay in a dizzy heap on her back catching her breath and her bearings when Colin called somewhere at her rear, "WATCH OUT ABOVE YOU!" Her eyes snapped open to find twenty feet or so above her head, THE NOSE (well, _Ex_ -Nose now) weighing down the horizontal blue banner, having lodged itself there after she'd lost her grip on it. Peeking through the torn gash, she spied the giant spirit orb that'd been nestling there as it emerged from the banner like the moon during a solar eclipse—except it was about to roll off the banner and eclipse her face. Aryll shrieked and rolled over fifty quadrillion times slower than she would've liked, cringing at the THUDD that hit the floor inches from her ear, and trying not to think about how she'd almost been splattered into a pancaked mural on the floor. The Master Orb, as she dubbed her nefarious assailant, was escaping from her with a posse of smaller spirit orbs that had evidently rolled down from the banner in suite with their leader. Aryll sprang to her feet and stormed after the Master Orb, glowering into its fish-eyed reflection of her. She couldn't believe it… this thing had almost done her in?! "You stupid Orb!" she shouted at it like a parent scolding a preschooler for breaking their favorite vase. "How dare you almost squish me like that! Don't you know an up and coming knight of incredible valor and worth such as myself should never be forced to succumb to such an untimely demise as THAT!" On the word 'That,' she reared her leg back like a catapult and kicked her raging foot straight into the Orb.

To her surprise, either the Orb was ten times lighter than she'd envisioned, or her foot had suddenly gained ten times the strength (or she really did have the super strength of Ganon) because the giant orb rocketed across the room at an exponential of the speed she was expecting, striking through the posse of smaller orbs scattered in front like they were balls in a game of pool—and at once the airborne orbs joined their leader in a chaotic shot straight into the backs of the Headmaster statue and his royal comrades positioned left and right, capsizing them like bowling pins in a perfect strike. In the following five second span before Aryll could get a coherent sound out of her throat, the fallen statues tumbled upon one another down the stepped pedestal, straight into the rows of statues lining the center aisle that ran the length of the hall. Like dominoes, they knocked over one after another and shattered, leaving their crumbled arms to smash to their fate upon the floor along with the weapons they held which, almost suspiciously, also broke. A long and painful instant later, the Weapon Hall had been reduced to nothing but rubble, a mess of marble busts and mangled limbs among shattered weapons after a battlefield fight. The victor of the fight? A highly bewildered Aryll.

Now, Aryll had a decent amount of experience making messes (probably enough experience to be hired for it, in fact). She'd made plenty back home while trying to discover her grandma's secret ingredient in her elixir soup by testing everything edible (and inedible) she could hurl into a flaming pot, resulting in the rainbow-colored combustion of the kitchen. But even that, though she'd been scarred at seeing her grandma's usually gentle face turn into an incarnation of Volvagia for the first time, still couldn't have prepared her for this.

Aryll and Colin stared in silence, slowly taking in the wreckage like ice cold water trickling down their backs.

Colin was the first to crack.

"We're dead. We're dead! I'm dead. Father is going to kill me when he finds out about this…" He clasped his head and tossed it about as though it were caught in a beehive, while Aryll stood beside him like a mute donkey after being kicked down a hill.

"…going to get kicked out before classes even start and get written into Hyrule Historia textbooks as the worst, most pathetic excuse of a student in the history of the kingdom, then become the laughingstock of the land when they start gossiping about it on the streets…"

Aryll shook her head to snap out the delirium before the malarkey he was spewing seeped into her ears and messed up the state of her head any further. At present, the inside of it was already looking about as chaotic as the Weapon Hall itself.

She called to Colin to snap him out of his mania, "Hey. Hello?" But he seemed to have gone deaf.

"…never be able to get a decent job, and then I'll starve living off cleaning toilets at the Stock Pot Inn…"

"…hey, listen to me!"

"…and, and then I'll NEVER GET TO MEET LINK!"

"HEY FANBOY!" she hollered an inch from his ear.

He sprang back with a start. "Will you stop calling me fanboy?! I have a name you know, it's COLIN!"

"Okay Colon—"

"—Colin! Don't downgrade me to a punctuation mark! How would you like to be a couple of dots on a page, like an Ellipsis—"

"—whatever! Save your sobbing for later, we have to do something about this!"

"Do?!" He sounded ready to toss her out a window. "What'dyou wanna do now, spend the next three hours gluing all the statues back together?! No—don't answer that! After what you did just now?! I don't think you should 'DO' anything anymore!"

Aryll cringed, like he'd just told her she smelled like fungal cabbage. "What's that supposed to mean?!"

"What do you think?! Take a GOOD look around! The state of this entire room is thanks to your desperado kick!"

Her foot drilled the floor as her cheeks resisted the urge to flush with shame. "Don't…don't blame me! That crazy orb went flying practically on it's own! I mean, I knew I was _exceptionally_ strong as a knight, but even I didn't think I had _that_ kind of super strength!"

He smacked a hand to his forehead so hard Aryll thought his head would knock off. "Don't you know anything?! Spirit orbs react to emotions when touched! Your angry kick supercharged it!"

Aryll gawked like a newbie realizing the sandwich she'd just bitten in had been stuffed with a dead beetle. "Wha—whaaaaaat?!"

Colin crinkled his brows, staring at her like she was more hopeless than a Goron trying to fly. "Look just forget it. There's nothing we can do now anyhow! Once the assembly ends and classes start, everyone will be in here to see this mess!"

"Well…we have to do something!"

"Yeah!" he grimaced. "The only thing we CAN do at this point—go report it!" He turned to stalk towards the door but Aryll caught his arm.

"Are you crazy?!" she squeezed his wrist. "You want to send us straight to our graves?! They could fry us up like bird thighs and eat us for lunch, or or wring our necks with necklaces made from the bones of stalchildren…I mean who knows what kind of punishment they'll dish at us?! We'll be in SO-O-O much trouble!"

"Correction…" he articulated breaking from her wrist, "…we're ALREADY in trouble!" Aryll winced as his voice echoed throughout the hall. "Everything's broken beyond repair, there's nothing we can do but take what's coming in stride!"

She picked up the rapier from their fight, the last remaining weapon that was still whole. "Not…everything broke, see?"

His glare at her was interrupted by the sound of footsteps outside the door, and both their hearts nearly thumped to the floor.

Colin, the model knight, instinctively leapt behind Aryll. She glanced over her shoulder at him with a snort. "Oh…?" she droned, "What happened to 'we should report this!'" She snickered. "…you're scared of getting caught after all, aren't you?"

"N-no…" he snaked a trembling boot out from behind her. Then the footsteps started back up, and he yelped like a hysterical guay. "…okay fine, yes yes!"

"So then, you _don't_ want to report this, am I right?"

"I…I didn't say that! Just…it'll look so much worse if we're caught in here like this!"

"Uh-huh." Her lip was a tad smug as it coiled.

The footsteps were amplifying outside the door both in volume and frequency.

"Here's an idea," she whispered, "how about we get out of here first, then continue this argument somewhere where we're not liable to a bust-in at any second!"

"They're right outside the door," he breathed. "How exactly do you wanna get out?"

Aryll pointed to a side of the hall that was three-fourths glass going up, with a sunny courtyard waiting on the other side.

"But…" Colin clamored, "…there's no door!"

She picked up a stone foot and hurled it through the glass, bursting a hole open the shape of a jagged pointed star. "There is now."

Colin gaped from the hole to the maverick that had made it.

"What?" she shrugged. "Everything in here's broken anyway like you said."

Behind them, a muffled voiced filtered in from the outer hall. "Did you hear something crash just now?" There was shuffling, and a jiggling of the knob. "…I think it came from the Weapon Hall…"

They didn't hear a word more. Like the model knights they were, a single alarmed look passed between them before they darted through the starry crack like rabbits to the woods before an impending storm.

They didn't look back.

o | O | o

On a fine early morning school day as the birds chirped, two students were making a freak scramble along the outskirts of their new school after fleeing the collapse of their latest locale.

The two scurried as far as their legs could carry, but though the distance between them and the site of the wreckage grew, a cloud of guilt loomed overhead with unfading might as though anchored to them like a balloon. In the hanging silence, their heads filled with opposing thoughts on what their knightly little selves should do faced with this sudden ordeal (for though they were victim to the same cloud, their plans of action couldn't differ more).

"We should go back." Colin broke the silence first. "We should report what happened. That's what model knights would do."

"Uh, hello?!" Aryll caught her breath as she slowed to a tread. "We just got out of there and you want to go back?!"

He frowned. "Yeah? Well what's your brilliant idea?"

She pursed her lip, fiddling with her sideburns. "Well, we could…just go to the assembly and forget that all happened?" Her cheeks puffed with sheepish rouge as a cold drop of sweat trickled down her brow. Sure, it wasn't the most _knightly_ thing to do, but it was better than turning in just to get booted from being a knight in the first place. After all, if the rumors about the severity of the staff turned out to be true, there was a serious chance they'd be expelled—before she'd even made it to her first class no less! She couldn't let that happen. Besides, what was being a knight all about, anyway? Her brother could detonate powder kegs in temples, drop into a ceremonial grounds unannounced from a catapult and steal rupees from anywhere under the sun and still get called the best knight around, this was nothing compared to that!

Colin didn't seem to agree. His jaw shot out as though the bogusness of her idea had exploded an octomine in his mouth. "Y-you can't be serious! H-how could you even suggest such a thing!" His fingers rubbed at the nape of his neck in a nervous twitch. "And besides, even if we wanted to, we still have no idea where the assembly is!"

Aryll planted her hands on her hips. "Not if we ask someone for directions!"

He frowned. "Oh really, and who exactly are we gonna ask?"

She grinned, thrusting her finger at a tree up ahead, where a single boy reclined in a branch like a lazy sloth. "Looks like we finally got a bit of luck, aye?"

Colin glanced towards the tree, and balked like it was infested with redeads. "NO!" He jumped in front of Aryll like an opposing teammate intercepting a goal.

She scowled. "What's your problem!?"

"Don't talk to him!" he hissed. "I know that kid and he's trouble! Trust me, it's better to avoid contact!"

Aryll rolled her eyes. This kid was a real pansy all right. Back home, she ate annoying bullies and all their unoriginal insults for lunch. "Please," she drawled. "I got this. Watch the pro at work. Okay?" She stalked to the base of the tree, cocky hands upon cockier hips. So, a troublemaker huh? No problemo, she knew how to deal with those. You just had to show em who's boss.

To her, curled up in the tree, he looked remarkably like a lazy monkey she'd seen in town, and so she called "HEY MONKEY KID! YEAH YOU UP IN THE TREE! WE NEED DIRECTIONS TO THE AUDITORIUM, PRONTO! CAPICHE?"

Colin smacked his forehead in dramatic fail. He watched as the boy in the tree stirred, tousled brown hair swiveling towards them along with a pair of mischievous green eyes that landed inquisitively down on Aryll, and then familiarly on him. Then came the snigger he knew all too well. "Well if it ain't Colin! That your new girlfriend? She's as butt—ugly as you are!"

Aryll's jaw plummeted as she felt the cockiness at her hips morph into the fury of her fists, throbbing to smash that mad monkey out from his cozy little perch. "WHAT WAS THAT?! YOU—'

"—Shut up Talo!" Colin cut in, catching her arm before she could burn down the tree. "You're a freshman too, why aren't you at the assembly?"

Talo ran his hands through his hair as though it were the fine silk hair of Hyrulian royalty. "Ha ha. Well see, some of us V.I.P.s don't need to go to boring assemblies for the newbs."

"That's moblin crock!" Colin shot from beside Aryll's death glare. "Classes haven't even started and you're already cutting!"

Aryll leaned in. "Real nice friend you've got up there."

"Friend my butt," he whispered. "We were neighbors before we moved here. Remember I said I had a neighbor who'd go stomping around the neighborhood? That was him. He's always had it out for me, he used to stick skullwalltulas in my lunch and stuff."

Aryll crinkled her nose. "Sounds delightful. Reminds me of how my brother used to mix poe souls into my shampoo—do you have any idea what that did to my hair?!" Then she bit her tongue. She'd mentioned him again! She had to stop doing that!

Colin half-shuddered, and half snorted at the image. "Your brother eats brains AND collects poes? Are you sure he's not a minion of Ganon's in disguise?"

Aryll had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing. "He's probably the same breed of monster as the one up in the tree here."

Colin chuckled. "I wouldn't be surprised if Talo was one of Ganon's minions. His monster powers would explain why he hasn't been kicked out yet, considering he's repeating freshmen year and all."  
She scoffed. "You mean he's new and already repeating? What a loser."

"Tell me about it. He's lazier than a spoiled cat. I don't know how he even made it into the Academy. I bet you he guessed the answers on the entrance exam, and passed from sheer dumb luck..."

She snorted. "Maybe I shouldn't bother asking him where the auditorium is after all. I'll bet he doesn't even know his way around since he's skipped so many times." They both proceeded to snicker in bucketfuls like miniblins beneath the tree.

"…HEY." Talo drawled down from his perch. "I can hear your idiotic gossip. Of course I know where the auditorium is. I got this whole place memorized."

Aryll whistled. "Oh really? Then where is it? We're listening."

"It's reeeeally hard to get to. You sure you two simpletons can handle remembering all the directions?"

"Just try us!" she retorted. Colin groaned.

"Ooookaaay, if you insist. Now, pay attention closely little cuccos…"

He sat up in the tree with the grin of a cheshire cat as Aryll whipped out a pencil and notepad from her knapsack. Colin whispered in a frown, "You're not seriously going to write down what he says…?" Her wrist answered by scrawling busily to Talo's words as Colin clapped another hand to his forehead.

"So," Talo's acclaimed documentary began, "even you simpletons should be able to see we're just outside the Foreign Cultures wing, which is obvious from the moose on the wall, right there." He pointed through the glass to where a moosehead hung staring out at them. Colin raised a brow at the moose, but Aryll was over questioning the tastes of the Hinox that had built the school, so she merely scribbled on in a thoughtless murmur, "Uh-huh."

"Uh…no." Colin interjected. "How is that obvious at all?"

Talo grinned like a genius before his ungifted peers. "Wow, you guys really don't know anything around here, huh?" He gazed down at Colin like he was dumber than the dirt he stood on. "Haven't you seen Big Bucha? Giant Kikwi? Kinda hard to miss even if you _are_ blind? _He's_ just outside the Foreign Cultures wing." He nodded back to the moosehead. "Big Bucha's just around the corner from that moose, though you can't see it from here."

"Fine, whatever," Colin heaved. "And this is important, why?"

Talo scoffed. "I'm getting to that you dunce. Shut up and listen. Anyway, from Foreign Cultures, you bang a left, then a right at the next hall, then left again, then go straight till you get to the big double doors... "

Colin groaned. He could already tell these directions were going to be unnecessarily winded and long, like the line for getting Croissants from Wheaton & Pita in town at noon.

"…go straight down that way until you hit the end, then you gotta go right again and then straight until you see the library on the left, then keep going that way until you see the giant spiral staircase and then bang a right before you hit the double doors at the end of that hall…"

From his left, Colin heard the sound of Aryll's profuse scribbling on her notepad as their enlightened host blabbered on like a glitched out gossip stone.

"…take the stairs and just outside there, you'll find a huge set of doors leading into a massive room. That's Auditorium C, where they're holding the assembly." He smirked. "Better hurry though, I think they lock you out if you get there too late. Oh, and tardy students have to vacuum the school in a fairy jumpsuit strapped to balloons. "

Colin glared. "You're a big fat liar Talo."

Talo's brows drifted up in lazed amusement. "Am I though?"

"Let's go, Colon." Aryll folded the paper and stashed her pen.

He scowled. "Call me Colon one more time and I'll start calling you Ganon for the rest of the year!" His arms crossed in defiance. "And I am _not_ taking directions from him! I wouldn't follow his lead even if I was starving alone on Eventide island!"

"Oh, so you have a better lead?"

"Are you kidding? A broken compass needle would be more reliable!"

Aryll frowned, eying the moosehead through the glass. It's not like there was anyone else around with directions to give at the moment. Who else was she going to ask, the moose?

Her hand pressed against the seamless glass, and she was struck with the reprise of an earlier problem: where were they going to find a door?! Thanks to the inane school designer that considered cow heads to be more important than emergency exits, re-entry might be an issue.

She spun back towards Talo. "Hey monkey face! One more question. How do we get back inside the school from here?"

Colin rattled at her like she'd put on a pair of headphones in the middle of a lecture. "Did you even hear anything I just said?!"

Talo's snicker wafted down from the tree. "So Colon and his girlfriend Ganon need me to escort them to the door? What to do…what to do…should I help them?"

Colin scowled. "See?" he whispered, "You actually want to trust that thing?"

"Hey!" Talo called back. "Check out the fountain over there!" His lazy index pointed over to a rusty fountain sticking halfway out the wall of the school. Aryll and Colin both grimaced as their eyes fell on the gnarly fountainhead of a horned demon unicorn sticking out the top. The interior decorator of the school, it seemed, never ceased to amaze with his designs (he'd really outdone himself this time—the fountainhead looked like it came straight from Ganon's Jacuzzi.)

Aryll scowled. "What, you want to show me more of this school's ugly decor? I've seen enough of it already, trust me." She vaulted into the dry fountain for a closer look at the demon head, leering down at its ugly green teeth (they looked almost as bad as her brother's did after the carnivorous feast of the century he had on his thirteenth birthday!)

"Twist the horn."

She glanced over at monkey face. "What? …why?"

Talo shrugged. "It opens a secret door back into the academy."

Colin scowled. "As if we'd fall for that!" he leapt in beside Aryll, disregarding the demon's ugly-eyed gaze. "Just ignore him," he whispered. "It's a prank, he pulls this sort of thing all the time."

"It's not a prank, I'm serious," Talo drawled from up in the tree with the mile wide smirk of a toad. "What, you scared?"

"In your dreams," Aryll shot back. Before Colin could choke out the G in Ganon's name, she'd yanked clockwise on the horn.

For a moment, nothing happened. Colin glowered at Talo. "See, I knew this was just a—praaaaaaagggghhhh!" The floor beneath the fountain opened up before he could complete the word, and Aryll and Colin found themselves tumbling into darkness. Talo's haughty laughter echoed out behind them, floating like a specter in the air high above their heads as they fell out of sight.

"Have fun in the twilight realm, losers!"

o | O | o

At first, when the ratcheting twists and turns of being dropped down a shoot in the dark finally stopped (along with Colin's screaming behind her more overdramatically than a stray traveller getting snatched off by a great fairy), Aryll herself wasn't exactly sure where they were. She felt herself bounce against something soft and springy before landing in a heap on the floor, Colin piled beside her in a contortion of limbs over the head, like some experimental avant garde yoga pose inspired by a towel being shot out of a blender. She had to admit she was worried for a moment when she opened her eyes and found herself staring into the face of a giant Kikwi whose long mustache was tangled with her messy wad of hair. Then she realized it was the stuffed mascot—Big Bucha as Talo had called him—that she and Colin had passed in the hall earlier that morning, and that it had likely cushioned their fall. She confirmed this by glancing up in time to catch a trap door in the ceiling close high above their heads.

Despite the manic detour through the slide from hell, it would seem they really were back inside the building. Talo, despite every bit of shade in the crinkle of his grinning lips, hadn't been lying after all.

That meant his directions could be legit.

On the other hand, though Colin staggered to his feet at barely a meter's distance, his brain hadn't quite landed on the same page as hers. He felt with trembling fingers at his face as though afraid it had morphed into a jack-o-lantern. From there, it took him five minutes of seeing cows on the wall before he could be convinced that they hadn't landed in some alternate version of the school in the twilight realm. As Aryll hiked on ahead with Talo's directions, he snapped at her like a wounded dog being lead into an oven after escaping a flood.

She did her best to ignore him, but it was like trying to tune out a yappity yack with no off button. The unwanted conscience trailed like a chained ball at her back, making certain she was drilled through the ears with the nasty echo of her own worst thoughts.

"This is a bad idea you know. Like all your other bad ideas."

"Shut up."

"Last time I said it was a bad idea you ignored me, and we all saw how that turned out."

"Shut up."

"You should rip up those directions, forget the assembly, and report what happened. That's what any respectable knight would do. They'd own up. You would too, if you had any ounce of that in you at all."

"Shut up."

"You snap at me for trying to read a map in Ancient Hylian, but trying to follow Talo's bag-o-lies directions, that's fine! Even though he's probably sending you into the Academy's Catacombs or worse!"

"Stop talking."

"How can you walk away and act like nothing happened back there?! Don't you even care?! No, no you don't! You're not even listening to a word I'm saying!"

That was the last straw. She whirled and spat into his meddling nostrils. "No one's forcing you to stick around! Go on then, go report what happened in the Weapon Hall and sink us both into trouble! You've been nothing but a pain all along, so why not make things worse and get us both kicked to the curb while you're at it!"

He glowered. "Oh, sure, act like everything's my fault! Your thinking's so backwards, I'll bet you haven't even realized yet the one in serious trouble isn't me…it's only gonna be YOU!"

Aryll's mouth stopped like a shut valve. She pivoted on her heel and stalked off without a word. Mother of Din, did he think she was an imbecile? Did he honestly think she wasn't aware of how deep her neck had gone swimming in the muck? No, he had to rub the rock salt into all her open wounds. Why couldn't he take a hint and get lost!

Colin watched as she thundered out of sight down the hall, conflict in his fidgeting boots on whether to follow or to split. He shook his head and let his boots veer him ninety degrees around, striding away down a separate hall in an attempt to ditch. After a pause of (what I suppose was) great deliberation however, he swiveled around and doubled back at twice the pace until he was thumping again at her heels.

When she heard his incessant step behind her once more, she groaned. "Why are you _still_ following me?!"

"Maybe, because I'm worried your bad ideas are gonna get you into more trouble!"

She scoffed. "Worried about me, huh? Could've fooled me! You're just so lost you don't know where you're going!"

He scowled. "Yeah I'm lost! But at least I can admit that! At least I can tell when I'm being stupid!" He strode up and seized her arm, forcing her to look him in the eye. "Why're you so stubborn, huh? You're just gonna make things worse for yourself! It's your lying that sent me on a wild goose chase to the weapon hall, your bad judgement that broke everything in it, and now your complete madness trusting in the directions of someone I can vouch for as a well-known liar! Maybe I'm weird, but you're a total mining facility wreck! Why can't you get a clue?!"

He tensed as he held her arm expecting her inevitable _'shut up'_ to slam him through the skull, but instead was met with only silence. Her eyes were blank when they met his. _Are you done?_ they said.

Gingerly, he released her arm and stepped back.

"…okay," he murmured, "I'll shut up now."

o | O | o

As Aryll's impeccable sense of navigation winded them through the halls (now that navigator and follower had been switched), Colin shadowed her in silence. He said nothing, not a word, even as Aryll meandered and met the same portraits they'd been passing earlier in deja vu encounters, even as they passed Big Bucha a second time, and the statue of the giant hand a third. It was like having a ghost at her back, and his silence haunted her even more than did his earlier scorn. At her every misstep, Aryll could imagine what he was thinking—Either Talo's directions were a bust, or her own navigational skills were, and her cheeks burned with the cracked pride that spilled the more she stalked around getting absolutely nowhere. Truly, she was an excellent navigator indeed!

Finally, upon passing a certain distinct dragon fountain for what must have been the fifth time (if she'd even been counting right), she whirled on her heel to glare at him—

"…if you've got something to say, then say it!" she spat.

He barely flinched, arms behind his head as though out for a stroll in the park. "I've got nothing to say."

"Like hell you don't! I'm such low grade trash that I'd even get rejected by a dumpster, that's on the tip of your tongue, isn't it?!"

He shrugged again. "Those are your words, not mine,"

"Don't pretend like you're not thinking it! Go on then, laugh! I dare you! Laugh at the pathetic loser!"

Colin's brows only crinkled in concern. "Look…maybe you should sit down for a minute. Get yourself some water from the fountain and cool off, alright?"

Aryll whirled on the marble blue fountain with a snarl, eyes pinning on the grandiose dragon coiled like a misshapen metal spring out the top. The dragon had a glowing orb in its mouth and jeered down at Aryll from its untouchable perch as though in pity at her sorry plight (or at least, that's what Aryll's eyes saw in her current frenzied vision of mind).

"Everyone's always making fun of me!" her index shot out at the dragon head. "Look at him, look! He's making fun of me too! See how he sneers?!"

"Uhm…" Colin murmured, glancing up at the dragonhead with a frown, "…I don't think it's Naydra fault he's got such a scary face…"

She vaulted into the fountain, splashing Colin as her feet dunked the basin coated in rupees (she vaguely wondered what kind of dumb wishes someone'd wasted their green rupees on by tossing in). At the base of the dragon statue, she craned her neck to glare into the eyes of the fiend. "You wanna fight?!" Her restless fingers caught hold of the lowest spike protruding like an icicle from the base of its back, and her soaked feet leapt upon it, proceeding to clamber up the dragon's tubular body by mounting one spike after another like rungs on a ladder.

Colin cringed, feeling a moment of deja vu creep through his spine. "…hang on, I really don't think you should climb…haven't you learned a single thing from what happened earlier?"

Aryll settled on a scaly coil of the body close enough to the dragon's head that she could punch the orb from its jaw. The orb glimmered a lapis blue within its fangs, radiating off the dragon's stone skin with a luster that reflected in Naydra's holier-than-thou eyes. That proud glint percolated beneath Aryll's own skin.

Her mouth triggered open, and Colin looked on in a daze as though he were watching a chair insult a desk. "You're a cocky beast, just like someone else I know, posing there all smug with that blazing orb in your mouth! I wonder how smug you'll look without this prized treasure of yours…"

She reached for the blue orb wedged between the fangs, but just as her arm was outstretched within inches, the orb faded like an illusion, and the dragon's wide-open mouth lunged in, clamping down on her arm. Aryll shrieked as though her hair had caught aflame, and Colin sprang back so far he slipped, and his ear tackled its way into the floor.

"W-what's with this…" she howled. "…crazy statue?! I can't move my arm!" The dragonhead had gone motionless the moment it'd decided on its new favorite chewtoy, and much as Aryll pulled her arm, it could not be budged from the dragon's hold.

Colin's feet splattered as he bounded into the fountain and called from the base. "You okay?! D-does it hurt?"

She whined. "No, but thanks to this hunk of hungry stone, I'm stuck!"

He stared up at her with a kind of exasperation, and her face paled to that of a freezard's. "…what?!" she hooted.

He shook his head. "…I was just thinking, maybe this is karma?"

Aryll bit the inside of her cheek, turning her grimace onto the watchful eyes of her stone captor. Though the glow of the orb was gone, they still gleamed at her with that infuriating supremacy.

She sighed.

"So what now?" She drummed her fingers, glowering into the eyes of the dragon, "You gonna ditch me here? Gonna go make that report after all?"

He leaned against the statue base. "Well I can't exactly report you since I still don't know your name. (And I'm _not_ gonna tell them Ganon destroyed the Weapon Hall.)"

"Huh!" Aryll huffed. "Tough luck!"

Colin sighed. He grabbed hold of the lowest protrusion on the dragon's tubular body and sprang his way up the spikes as she had, until he was seated across from her on an adjacent loop.

"…you know," he tossed his feet over the stone coil to face her, "I've been deliberating this, and I think just maybe…I've figured you out." He leaned towards her, the flicker of a candle's flame in his eye. "…the reason you get so worked up making stubborn, dumb decisions is because you're desperate to prove yourself. You try to act all high and mighty but that's just a front, isn't it? To hide that you're actually… _really_ insecure." He bent his head at her. "Am I right?"

Aryll was silent. When her eyes lifted into view, Colin nearly sprung off his perch at the force of her glare. A blink later found her glare diffused into a vacant sigh however, and she mumbled. "…always getting babied."

"…huh?" Colin blinked. She raised her head.

"I always get treated like I can't handle anything difficult, or remotely challenging myself. It's like I can't get credit for anything, and I'm just so…" she rubbed at the scales on Naydra's head. "… _done_ with it. I _have_ to become the best, to show them just how wrong they are!" Her face blazed like a crepe being flambéd for a moment, but then her shoulders slumped and she placed her chin on the dragon's nostrils. "…that's what I tell myself. But then I make a fool of myself and its back to being made fun of again." She held up Talo's directions for effect, crumpling and tossing them into the fountain below. "Rinse and repeat, it's like I'm cursed or something. Maybe I really _am_ a lost cause, and I'm just in denial."

Colin regarded her like a scholar deliberating a complex poem. "…you're not a lost cause."

She snorted. "Oh yeah? What was it you were calling me earlier? A mining facility wreck?"

"Yeah well, I take back what I took back about you before."

Her brows drifted up. "…huh? Care to repeat that in Hylian?"

He leaned over, rubbing at the stone scales beneath his thumb. "Well you _are_ rough around the edges, and you've got a reckless streak that lands you into trouble, but so what? That doesn't mean you can't shape up. If you've decided in your heart that you're gonna become a great knight, then do it! No one's got any business telling you you can't. It's _your_ will, you determine who you are and what you become."

Aryll stared at him. It was like a chickaloo tree nut had suddenly sprouted a brain so big that it blocked the rain from hitting her face. She cracked a smile. "Hey, you say some pretty good things, sometimes!"

He frowned. "…only sometimes…?"

"….too bad," she sighed. "It's too late to do anything now. Even getting to the assembly is probably out."

Colin knitted his brow. "Yeah, my Dad's probably there right about now, wondering where I am…" he swallowed, fidgeting with a strand of his bangs, "…it probably doesn't help that he's one of the fencing instructors."

"Greeeeat," she droned, "You can tell him later how you were running around with the delinquent who remodeled the Weapon Hall with her magic brand of catastrophic fail."

Colin stared at her a moment like a cracked lantern he'd tossed in the garbage too soon, and he shook his head. "Actually, that wasn't fair, what I said before," he rubbed his neck. "About everything being your fault. It was my fault too. I had a hand in provoking you back there, and I wasn't much of a help either."

Aryll cast her eye at him curiously before deflecting his shake of the head with her own. "…Nope. Everything you said about me was right on the nose. I got defensive 'cause I knew that. It's like you said, I'm the one in deep trouble. The Weapon Hall's gonna get me booted, I just know it."

He lapsed into silence, and a moment passed before he raised his head **.** "Actually, you know what?" his eyes flickered, "I know I freaked out about it before, but now that the initial shock has worn off, the mess in the weapon hall probably isn't _that_ bad."

"Oh yeah?" she droned with the enthusiasm of someone pretending a piece of stale bread was a fresh slice of cake. "Well unless you're trying to tell me you got psychic abilities that let you rearrange a room just by thinking about it, I'd say you're delusional. Even though it's a nice delusion, so thanks for that."

He shook his head. "No, I'm serious! The statues are one thing, but those weapons broke as soon as they hit the floor! If they broke _that_ easily, their durability must've been terrible to begin with!"

"But you said only the best knights get to use the weapons in there. Wouldn't that make them valuable?"

"Yeah, I don't know." He ran a hand through his hair. "But I _do_ know this. Honesty in a knight is respectable, it's _got_ to count for something! If we're at least up front about it, we'll probably still get in trouble, but we won't get outright booted." He hopped down from Naydra with a splash, extending an arm up towards Aryll. "Let's go right now, and get it over with. I'll go with you and explain too. It'll be fine, you'll see."

Aryll gazed down at him like he'd forgotten his glasses were stuck to his face. "…maybe you forgot this," she droned, "but even if I wanted to, Naydra here isn't interested in letting me even take a dump in a toilet…huh?" She tugged on her arm and it slipped from dragon's mouth like soap. She stared.

Colin whistled. "See that? Even Naydra forgives you! That's got to be a good sign."

Aryll slid her butt off the coil of stone, tumbling into the basin of water below with the elegant splash of a turkey. Her head floundered busily for thirty seconds before her eyes found Colin standing beside her with his hand outstretched.

"Let's go." He spoke with a firm glint in his eye. Above his head, she could see the vision of the orb in Naydra's fangs had appeared there once more.

Aryll bit her lip as the water dripped from her glistening hair, feeling twice as certain she'd slip again after standing back up. "You really think an apology would be enough?"

The corner of his lip tugged up. "How many times have I been wrong today, compared to you?"

She chortled. "Okay okay, fair point we'll go!" Her hand reached for his, but at the last second, he pulled it away.

"—After…" he stared pointedly into her eye, "…you finally tell me your name?"

Aryll huffed. "Fine, fine." She leapt up from the basin, a slow grin seeping over her features like the water dripping down her chin. "Want to hear the full speech or the abridged one?"

"Speech?" he cocked a brow.

Her grin morphed into a radiant beam as she splashed out of the fountain and stomped the water from her feet. She cleared her throat. "Ladies and gentlemen! I introduce to you Hyrule's star upcoming knight! The one, the only, Ar—aagghh!" at the last moment she slipped and collided with the floor, as she'd predicted. Colin was laughing as she staggered up.

"Aragh?" he chortled, sloshing out of the fountain. "Well, I've heard worse names."

Aryll shook her head. What was she thinking?! It was a good thing she HAD slipped because she'd almost let something else slip that was far too important to be said.

She raised her eyes to Colin, took a deep breath, and spoke again.

"Llyra. My name is Llyra."

o | O | o

* * *

 **NEXT ::** Chapter 04—The Legend of Llyra (Part I/II)

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

Well that concludes what I guess was something of a prologue.

I wondered when I wrote the end of this chapter whether it worked within the scheme of a comedy, but I decided that the character development would be worth including, even if it meant not every scene would be funny. My hope is that it feels natural within the story.

I enjoyed writing the scene with Talo, the little troll. He's not the only one of his type joining campus either, haha.

Also, a thank you to Luck Kazajian and Ri2 who have been reading and reviewing, I really appreciate it. (If there are any lurkers reading, I would love to hear from you too!)

Comments welcome!

/~/ Farosie


	4. The Legend of Llyra (I)

.

 **Ch 04—The Legend of Llyra (Part I/II)**  
 **-:-:-{** Vol 01— The Knightly Way Thoust Finds an Assembly **}-:-:-**

* * *

Though Aryll had plenty of quirks she preferred not to have circling upon the gossiping lips of her newfound classmates (like her preference to nap in death-defyingly high places like castle rooftops, flagposts, lookout towers, billboards…for some reason people were always too freaked at the thought of rolling over to your death to appreciate the comforting freedoms of the open air) there was just one secret she dared not breathe a word of to anyone so long as she stalked the halls of this school: her relation to a certain big shot figure.

Why was that, exactly?

As Colin had ever so graciously pointed out, THE one and only famous Link was a living legend across Hyrule whose name nary a soul hadn't heard. But while to others, word of his whereabouts was a source of buzzing excitement, for Aryll it prodded a sore subject that caused her ears to wrinkle like charred safflinas. As far as she was concerned, there was no greater curse in her life than her familial relation to his blinding celebrity self.

Following his rise to acclaim, idling about with grandma at home had quickly become unbearable. It took no time at all for her to sicken of the mobs outside her doorstep (their house had apparently become a boisterous tourist destination featured in pamphlets without their permission). Day-in-day-out encounters with the creepers, stalkers, and suckering-up strangers that acted abnormally nice as they claimed to be her forgotten best friends from camps she'd never heard of had transformed her once sunny smile and cheerful self into a snarky, biting, rather unfriendly teenage girl. (One time, a girl had even pretended to be sick and collapsed in front of a nearby shop—Aryll had honestly feared for the girl's life and carried her heavy body all the way home at a trudge (she weighed more than a packed mule after eating a boar for lunch!) to get help from grandma—but the moment she'd scurried out of the living room gasping for backup, the girl had snapped open her eyes, crept into her brother's room and then leapt out the window with his bed pillow (Aryll saw in the paper that the pillow got auctioned off for 48 million rupees later that week). Thanks to many more incidents like that than she cared to remember, Aryll no longer trusted people the way she had once, certainly not friendly strangers, and certain not fans of her brother.

To add to her soured attitude, for all the trouble she and grandma put up with on his behalf, what kind of treatment did they get? Mister oh-so-popular, mister oh-so-important didn't have five minutes in the day for them anymore. Aryll saw the blood moon ten times as often as she saw him come by, and on the rare occasion that he did stop in, it was only to stock up on another helping of grandma's extra special elixir soup. When they were younger, he used to prank her in the middle of the night by doing all sorts of things— drawing a face over her face with a felt marker, coiling a plastic snake around her neck from under her pillow, moving her to the shed so she'd wake up with horse poop in her hair… Then in the morning he'd snap a pictograph of her face in that first moment of delirium after she woke up. He'd kept a collection of those dastardly pictographs in some secret hideout so he could constantly laugh at how dumb she looked. At the time she'd thought those pranks were the worst he could do, but after he basically up and left for good, she realized that all of those pranks combined were nothing compared to the awfulness of him basically ditching them as he did.

Uneventful as her life might have been compared to his, he had become absent of it. When she'd participated in the island build-your-own-boat race using a rickety wagon tied to a couple of logs, fell into a cyclone in the middle of it and still managed to get swept into first place, was he there? No. When she climbed to the top of the Lighthouse for the first time and broke her foot on the second-to-last step up, sending her tumbling back down the five hundred step spire and putting her on crutches for the next two months, did he hear about it? No, too busy interviewing for the Swordsman Newsletters, Hyrule's top publication on heroic feats. How about when she capsized out a ship leaning over the rails too far while squinting at a floating lump in the water, trying to figure out whether it was a dolphin? She'd dunked headfirst into the spine chilling water and nearly drowned, washing ashore on some islet in the middle of nowhere. It took the ship about ten hours to realize she was missing and come back looking for her, at which point she was fighting bokoblins off with a stick for a shoddy piece of meat. Where was he? Living it up at one of many prolific royal awards ceremonies thrown in his honor at Hyrule Castle, where they'd hand him his gentility on a spit-shined trophy and sing praises into his ears while five thousand people cheered and fought for fifteen seconds of his time. No, while he might have been a hero to everyone else in Hyrule, he certainly wasn't one to her. His visits, when he came by, were in and out, and hardly left time to hurl more than an insult at what she was wearing. Hell, she could have Joel dress as her and stand there in her place, or leave a parrot talking in her voice at home and he'd barely notice she wasn't there as he billowed on by back and forth out the door.

Not that his absence bothered her anymore. He could drop off the face of Hyrule for all she cared now. If only his demise could take all the problems he'd left her with to the afterlife, but alas, the worst of the matter was something that couldn't be assuaged by such easy means.

Between all siblings, there exists an unspoken comparison of measure. Those foolish Hylians who thought her relation to him enviable and wondered at why she didn't revel in the attention clearly did not know what it was like to live eclipsed by such an inescapable shadow whose shade never disappeared even in the constant absence of the owner. Her brother's legacy was in its own league, something rubbed in her face (and dangled before her eyes quite literally at times— wallscrolls featuring her brother's silhouette etched with the words _How Epic Are You?_ ) day in day out haunting her no matter where she went). It was in the gossip circulating among old ladies and teenagers alike on the streets, it was in the street rhymes the little kids sang as they played hopscotch ( ~ E.l.d.i.n. ~ B.r.i.d.g.e ~ i.s. ~ f.a.l.l.i.n.g. ~ d.o.w.n, ~ w.h.a.t. ~ t.o. ~ d.o. ~ a.s. ~ L.i.n.k. ~ s.a.v.e.s. ~ t.o.w.n. ? ~ ), it was in the merchandise at the store (yes they sold merchandise of her brother— action figures, posters, folders, mugs, rugs, tooth brushes, bedspreads, boxes, wrapping paper for the boxes, bags for the boxes, boxes for the boxes…anything that could rake in rupees, the greedy bastards.)

In the meantime, the height of her own legacy consisted of the time she'd saved the mayor's anniversary cake from being devoured by her neighbor's pet pigs, which she'd accidentally let loose earlier that same morning. (She had an M.U.S. award (that's, Most-Unique-Sneeze) on her wall from junior girl scouts that'd been given to her as a prank when she was eight after her sneeze startled a boar which proceeded to wreck their campsite, did that count for anything?) Her special talents and skills included professional klutz, troublemaker extraordinaire and attractor of bad luck like a moth to the flames—all talents that won her the great awe of her fellow peers.

Excepting her long-time friends like Sue-Belle and Joel, the dwellers on her island back home showed her their awe by referring to her only as 'Link's silly little sis.' She'd tried one time spelling her name slowly enough that even a five year old could remember it, only to slip on dog poop mid-sentence and go tumbling into the brook. She could hear them laughing above her head, and then the inevitable, invariable whispers, _'Is that girl really related to THE great Link? She hardly seems worthy of such an honor…'_ then she'd splash them with water and they'd scurry away gossiping about how barbaric she was compared to him.

This impression was only made worse during the few extended visits her brother made back home—extended meaning longer than five minutes, where she'd have the honor of being mocked by His Lordliness personally and in public. Somehow, he'd always manage to make those five minutes as miserable for her as possible.

 _'Hey Link did you hear?'_ one of her neighbors would call to him as an excuse to strike up a conversation and pretend they were old buds, _'your silly little sis nearly broke the walking bridge again!'_

He'd stroke his golden baked sideburns, emitting a low chuckle. _'Oh really? She's totally hopeless, isn't she? She can't even tie her shoelaces without tripping over herself. You know…one time she ate dog biscuits covered in pee because she thought they were cookies dipped in vanilla milk, and then she vomited them up all over the living room…we couldn't get the stains out of the couch for a month and the stench was so bad all of grandma's plants died just from being in the same room…'_ and he'd proceed to make a social spectacle of her most embarrassing moments as half the neighborhood gathered around for a good laugh.

She knew something needed to change…and then it did.

When her cousin Sue-Belle had applied and been accepted at GAUKH the most prestigious academy for knights in Hyrule, at first Aryll had wanted to set fire to every bush in the neighborhood. That accursed academy for knights that had opened in Central Hyrule only a semester ago in honor of her brother, and yet had already become the most desirable school in the kingdom, just hearing the name of that place set her blood ablaze. Sue was the equivalent of a trusted, reliable older sister to Aryll, and news of her departure to that place was a stab in the back to the same sore spot caused by her brother's departure. Sue was wiser than anyone Aryll knew though, and she left Aryll with some ambiguous food for thought.

Seated opposite Aryll with crossed legs looking cool and collected as a monk who'd mastered the art of meditation, she spoke with a vase balanced upon her head like it always was. _'Ary,'_ she breathed, _'if a dazzling sunflower grows out of the dead carcass head of a monster, then is the sunflower too a monster, or is it something wonderful all its own?'_

Sue's wisdom had a way of sounding like nonsense for about a week, until her words snapped themselves into place like puzzles pieces in Aryll's brain. It dawned on her: Though the Academy was birthed in her brother's name, it had no bearing on what an aspiring student knight could grow to become there. This came with an epiphany—what more deliciously ironic way could there be to prove herself than to become a top knight at the best knight Academia in Hyrule and surpass her brother from right under his nose? It was genius, it was brilliant! She picked up an application for the Academy the next day.

There was just one hitch: her identity. (Okay, two hitches if you included getting into the accursed place. But after applying for two years straight (yeah so what if it took two years!) she'd finally made it in somehow!) The indubitable heart of the matter was, the moment anyone at the Academy knew anything of their relation, it'd spread across school faster than she could set off enough smoke bombs to vanish into thin air (not that she'd ever used a smoke bombs before). Once she were returned to that damning title of _'Link's little sis™'_ again, it'd be GAME OVER for her.

To avoid this, she needed an Alias. _Llyra_ was what she'd written on her application, AKA her name—Aryll—spelt backwards, in almost a symbolic inversion of herself (twas a rare moment of genius!) Under her new alias, the first thing to go was her sunny blonde hair. (Not that she was afraid strangers would recognize her—they wouldn't. It was more a symbol of change than a precautionary measure after all.) Llyra had obsidian black hair pulled back into a messy whirlpool bun, save for her sideburns which hung loosely beside her ears. Her modest attire consisted of a midnight-blue jacket and well-worn hylian trousers that she'd traded a lump of amber for in town. As the final touch, a giant pair of swirly coke bottle glasses shielded her eyes. The nerdy look was unassuming, she figured, and would make it easier for her to surprise people when she telescope-smashed their expectations of her into the city in the sky.

This humble guise could only be busted by a couple of people, including the vase-balancing Sue-Belle. Sue was sharp as a tac and certainly no fool, but since she was in her junior year, the chance of encountering her was pretty slim at least.

On the other hand, there was the Big Bad Wolf prowling the halls, which was no small issue. The good news was…thanks to some extra precautions on her part (plus his total and utter lack of contact with home), _That_ Guy had absolutely _NO_ idea she was here! The bad news was…in the unlikely event he did find out, she'd be totally _damned_. If spilling the beans in front of the whole school weren't enough, he'd probably find the worst way to start meddling into her affairs—and he most certainly wasn't welcome to burst in on them now. He'd already gone and stretched the cord between them so thin when he'd left, it was only fair she gave that cord the final snap to sever it for good.

Not that she was much worried, being as the odds of falling on his radar dropped below freezing point anyway (as if he'd even believe she made it into the Academy in the first place!) No doubt the most popular senior boy for miles around was far too busy with his own affairs just the way he always was to notice anyone among the throngs of students vying for his attention. Even if their paths did cross, with her geeky schoolgirl look, he'd walk right passed her without so much as a second glance.

Regardless, there was no dropping her guard on any front. No more mentions of a brother could slip out—from now on, she'd deny any connection to _That Guy_ even with a knife at her throat (not that she expected it to come to that or anything). New friends could be no exception to this rule either. Colin, though he'd managed to climb ten or so ranks in her head in the past half hour from stupid fanboy to somewhat annoying potential friend, was still first and foremost a diehard fanboy of That Guy who couldn't find out about her familial connection, friend or not. It was unfortunate though, since despite his hardcore fanboy side (and her initial impression of him), Colin seemed to be someone worth befriending after all. Nevertheless, there was no room for guilt in her convictions. "Llyra," she told him, "My name is Llyra."

"Okay then, Llyra." Colin beamed across from her, and his smile Llyra noticed, was not half as irritating as it had been earlier. She felt the warmth of it radiate from his hand as he held it out. "Let's start over. Nice to officially meet you. Can we start fresh from here?"

Her mouth tugged into a smile. "Sure, fresh as Lon Lon Milk," she piped, but as she moved to take his hand, he withdrew it at the last second.

"—just one thing." His features grew stern, and Llyra tensed as he stared her squarely in the eye.

"…what?"

"…I need you to promise me one thing. You…" his eyes blazed like the fireplace back home on a winter night. "… ** _lied_ **to me earlier. Don't…don't do that again, don't lie to me anymore. Promise me that much, and I'll trust you."

Llyra froze like someone caught in the gaze of a redead. She could see the weight of his convictions reflected in his eyes, a world away from the dopiness that had dwelt in them before, and she swore to Din under her breath. Of all things, he had to ask that? There'd be no problem with it except for a single thing…she grimaced.

"Promise, Llyra!" he called again.

"Okay, okay!" She fiddled with her sideburns. "I…I won't lie to you anymore, I swear!" _Except for just this one lie, sorry Colin, it's nothing personal._

"Pinky swear double dare, bokos in their underwear?"

"Uh…what?"

He grinned. "It's a thing my mom taught me when I was little. Give me your pinky."

Llyra snorted despite herself. "Colin, you're such a dork, you know that?"

"Hey, you finally got my name right!" his smile grew wider, "Anyway C'mon, be a sport!"

"Fine, fine!" She swallowed the lump in her throat as she crossed pinkies with him. Colin had such a serious expression on his face when he recited the dumb line, you'd think it was some kind of last avowal before he kicked the bucket.

Finally, the creases in his face melted in favor of sunny cheeks. "Alright, then we're square!"

Llyra gave him a half-hearted smile like she'd just won a lifetime supply of cake from a ticket she'd picked up after it fell out of someone's pocket. On Llyra's list of net accomplishments for the day, that was plus one for friends, minus one for secrets. She half wished someone would punch her face in to smack the guilt from her cheeks.

Colin stretched his arms as though he'd just woken from a long nap. "Now then…" his face beamed, "…are you ready to walk into the Headmaster's office and convince him you're the kind of legendary knight Hyrule needs around here, Llyra?" His head swung towards her to behold the legendary enthusiasm in her soaked pants, slouching back, awkward grin…he frowned, putting a hand to his chin. "…maybe don't go in looking like that."

Llyra frowned, squeezing her hair like a damp towel. She'd been dreaming of the moment she'd get to waltz in before the Headmaster, twirling swords like batons as she somersaulted her way into his distinguished hall of fame. It was so like the universe to grant her dream with some ironic twist added in that squeezed the joy out of the whole affair—Apologizing for the unfortunate fate of the Weapon Hall whilst looking like a wet mop was not what she'd had in mind (it's too bad her clairvoyant senses hadn't warned her that dressing in waterproof armor might've salvaged some of her dignity as a knight).

"Gee…" she crossed her damp sleeves, "…you wanna lend me that superhero transformation mask you've got hidden in your bag, mister fairy godfather?"

To her surprise, a spark lit itself in his eye. "Llyra, that's…that's it!"

Llyra gasped. "No way…you mean you've for real got—"

"—No of course not!" He waved his hand, shattering her momentary deluded fantasy of powering through the sky in a fancy cape.

She frowned. Of course the universe would never hand her such a convenient opportunity…she wasn't _That Guy_ after all.

Colin was slipping off his bag, and he let it thump lightly to the floor. "I'm saying we should empty our bags and pool our stuff, see what we've got to work with." He shook his head like he'd forgotten his own birthday. "Why didn't I think of this earlier? It might give us new ideas on how to get ourselves un-lost!"

Llyra rolled her eyes, flicking a slick lock of hair behind her ear. "Colin, we're lost in a _school,_ not shipwrecked on some desert island?"

"Doesn't matter," he flicked open the top strap and capsized his bag, dumping its contents to the ceramic tiles. "A knight should be aware of everything in his arsenal before formulating any kind of plan."

Llyra snickered, though she dismounted her piggy bag from her shoulder all the same. "Oh, and where'd you read that..." she unzipped her piggy partner between the ears, "...encyclopedia to dorkhood?"

"Oh please," Colin chuckled. "Try the first line in Knights 101? Basic stuff Llyra, you should know this."

"Yeah, yeah." She unleashed the contents of her bag to the floor beside Colin's and they both crouched in to see what rich assortment of weaponry they had at their disposal. On Colin's side, there was a thick textbook labelled - **Knights 101** -, a jar of chickaloo treenut butter (why did he have that infernal stuff?!), a fat folder with a picture of Link on it (gee, I wonder what's in there, Llyra thought rolling her eyes) a five-section planner (she probably should've brought one of those herself), the bottle of glue, a couple of rulers (why two?), that infernal map in ancient Hylian, a square color pictograph of Link autographed and framed (not even worth mentioning what she thought of this), and an oversized wooden spoon (she resisted the urge to comment on this). On Llyra's side (more sparse but at least she had less junk), her notebooks, her trusty telescope, a strange blocky stone that Joel had given her last minute (she'd forgotten about it actually), the offending green hat grandma had packed, and an empty jar. It was rather a pathetic set of school weapons, unless you were running for most-likely-to-die-first-in-battle.

"…well?" Colin nudged her elbow. "…any inspiration, Llyra the Legendary? Let's see you put that mind to work."

"Sure…" she droned. "…we've got the perfect ingredients for Hyrule's most dubious pot roast."

He frowned. "C'mon Llyra, be creative! Try to think of more creative ways we could use this stuff."

Llyra rolled her eyes. "Well, if you insist…" She pointed to the map in Ancient Hylian, "This is great toilet paper," then her finger slid to the chickaloo treenut butter, "this is for smearing door handles to attract flies so no one opens the door," then it moved to the glue, "and this is good for fixing rare broken swords—"

"—Llyra!" Colin frowned.

"—and this," went on Llyra anyway, pointing to the fat folder with Link on the cover, "would make a great doormat in a moblin lair. We should think about selling it to a business scrub—"

"These—" Colin snatched the folder off the floor "—are premium grade photos!" He flipped the folder open and leaned in to give her a peek. "You could learn a thing or two from studying these, see? SEE?"

Llyra only had to glimpse His Lordliness being preened beneath the sun, sword touching the heavens for her eyes to roll back in her head.

"Uh-huh," Llyra crossed her arms, "and this helps our current situation…how?"

Colin's face sparkled as though a beam of light had hit his face from the open folder. "Well…don't they just fill you with a positive energy that makes you feel like anything's possible?"

Llyra glowered. "Colin…" she snapped the folder and its beam of light shut, returning it to its place among the populated floor. "…if you want me to have _any_ positive energy left by the time I reach the Headmaster's office, then do me a favor and stop bringing up…"

Colin was unscrewing the cap of his chickaloo treenut butter. "…bringing up what?" He pressed the jar into her hands. "If you're low on energy, you should have some of this. I swear to Ordona, it doubles health!"

Llyra scrunched her nose, staring into the smooth, nutty whirlpool of That Guy's favorite snack. The nauseating, familiar stench of it alone was enough to sap at her strength.

Ordinarily, she was used to the prickles that came from constant reminders as to his lofty station in life, but since her plan to start off on a higher foot as 'Llyra' had been so quick to go south, the obligatory prickles were sharper than usual. It were almost as though an invisible octorok were stalking her, shooting rocks at the back of her head whenever _That Guy_ were brought up.

She glanced over at Colin, rifling through their junk with the nonchalance of someone raiding a cabinet of food on a Sunday afternoon, and a smidgen of envy colored her eye. It must be nice, she thought, not having to measure up to a legacy the size of the moon.

"…hey Llyra," Colin interrupted her reverie. She stirred as he held up the oddly shaped stone that had come courtesy of Joel. "…what's this rock?"

Llyra stared at the rock with a frown. Joel had insisted on giving it to her before she left as some kind of good luck charm. Though the gesture had been nice, the reminder that he thought she was going to be in desperate need of luck was not (though she knew it to be true). Plus, the thing didn't even work. "It's called a Stone of Agony," she droned.

"What?!" Colin screeched, dropping the rock like it were infected. "This isn't some kind of dark magic artifact, is it?"

"Relax." Llyra picked up the stone, "It's about as frightening as your average paperweight. My neighbor gave it to me as a last minute going away gift. He said it was supposed to be some kind of Secret Detector, but the only thing it's detected so far is my stupidity for bringing it along, since all it's been doing is weighing down my backpack."

As her fingers pressured its surface, her eye spied a blue bin at the corner of a glass banister down the hall. Assuming it to be a trashcan, her arm reared itself back and flung the stone that way. Of course, her impeccable aim sent the stone soaring over the bin, such that it hit the opposite wall and landed upon the floor beneath a wide stone slab instead. She could only scowl at her aim.

Colin frowned. "You're throwing it away? Didn't you say it was a gift?"

"Yeah, don't worry…the sender wouldn't care." She shrugged. "He probably won it playing battleship at the carnival, like half his other junk."

She ran a finger through her damp hair and rubbed her shoulders as a shudder struck her spine. It was too bad Joel hadn't sent her off with some of those spicy peppers he loved to burn his mouth on so much—a mouthful of those and all the residual water on her would've evaporated in an instant. She opened her mouth to lament her lack of peppers aloud, when she felt her shudder of cold be overtaken by a tremble that had nothing to do with any chill. Colin across from her was trembling too, and as his frown vibrated, the two of them glanced down at their feet, where the trembling was strongest.

"…why's the floor vibrating?"

Colin shook his already trembling head. "Wait a minute Llyra, it's not the floor that's vibrating…look over there, it's your stone!" He pointed down the length of the hall where, true enough, the stone was buzzing like an electric chu sending vibrations through the floor. Llyra knitted her brows.

"Hey…" Colin eyed the spot where the stone was motoring in place, "…you think it's detecting some secret? I thought you said it was busted!"

"…it _is_ busted. Trust me, there's nothing over there." She glanced towards the end of the hall with a frown. The moment Joel's cheap carnival gift could lead her somewhere worthwhile was the moment pigs could take over the world after all.

Despite her words, Colin leapt to his feet and advanced towards the frenzied call of the stone.

Llyra raised a brow at him. "…you're just gonna leave your stuff out in the middle of the hall?"

He stopped, glancing back at their heap of junk. "Oh…good point." She watched as he strode back, leant down and let his fingers slide carefully beneath the framed pictograph of Link before dusting it off and slipping it under his arm. "Can't leave something this valuable lying around after all."

Llyra snorted. She wondered whether she should bother telling him that _That Guy_ never signed autographs…he claimed it was against his code or whatnot.

She frowned down at her own stuff, trembling lightly like pebblits along the floor. Whether Joel's stone was a chunk of hokum or not, its tantrum needed to be silenced one way or another. She climbed up from the floor with a sigh, but not before her fingers picked themselves up a certain cylindrical gadget. It was the only thing among their junk that mattered to her after all, the only thing she'd never go anywhere without. She slipped it into the damp pocket of her jacket.

When she met Colin at the other end of the hall, she found his eyes glued to the wall. "Llyra…your strange rock detector works after all! Do you see this?!" he breathed.

She picked the buzzing stone off the floor and fixed her eyes on the humble offerings of the wall. It greeted her with an elaborate stone relief two inches thick, wide as the pond behind her house and high as the bulletin board advertising overpriced bombs just outside her town. The relief, though carved with a certain intricacy of detail, was populated with the kind of blocky figures Llyra expected to see in a Funday School picture book. They recurred across its span, drawn in profile with pointy noses, big bobble eyes as wide as their heads, spaghetti hands and stubs for legs. The illustrious story they occupied might've been entertaining, but what little interest Llyra had in it evaporated the moment her eyes landed on the somewhat recognizable figure in the pointy hat, holding his fat sword to the sky while haloed like the sun. Her countenance melted to a scowl as she felt that invisible octorok take another shot at her head.

Brilliant, this was just what she needed to lift her spirits—the difference between That Guy and herself, etched permanently in stone. Maybe Joel had rigged his effervescent present to react to her sources of agony as a joke…that'd explain why he'd called it a Stone of Agony after all. "It's a giant slab that covers half the wall," she droned. "How's that a secret unless your blind?"

Colin was busy bristling like the restless stone in her hands. "Forget that!" His voice had risen to the joyous shriek of a wizzrobe. "Don't you realize what we're getting the honor of looking at here?!"

She squeezed the frenzied rock between her fingers, trying to force it still. "…an ancient carving showing one of santa's elves having hallucinations of grandeur?"

He ignored her remark, patting the relief as though it'd dropped straight out of the sacred realm. "The Battle at Spectacle Rock! THIS, is a depiction of the famous battle that took place at its base!"

"Fascinating," Llyra drawled, the stone still spazzing in her hands. "Can we go now?" She pivoted to exit stage left, but Colin caught her shoulders and rotated them back to appreciate the distinguished showings of the wall.

"Witness the heights of the legendary history we aspire to reach ourselves…you must appreciate it, behold!" He flung his arm at the leftmost end of the relief, where a group of stocky figures clutching fat swords were crawling upon their lanky knees, looking more like dehydrated donkeys than people. Colin cleared his throat, and let it deepen into his imitation of a professional narrator. **"The blood moon riseth above the Tower of Hera, bathing the battered battalion in the crimson hue of imminent death…"**

Llyra rolled her eyes. "Colin…really?"

Colin's narrating finger continued to the right, where jelly blobs with beady eyes and v-shaped snouts stuffed with jagged triangles (Llyra supposed these were teeth) appeared to be popping out of the ground. **"…as the beasts of malice sundered once before rise anew—rise to the laughter of their master, gilded by light of the flaming moon…"** He gestured towards the middle of the relief where a giant red circle inset with an enormous eye sat overhead a laughing pig in a cape, centered between two peaks.

Llyra elbowed her narrator. "…Colin, _what_ exactly are you supposed to be quoting here?"

He tapped her shoulder as though dismissing her question, grinning as he resumed his soliloquy. **"…the Beast speaketh, _'Doest thou fools not see how thy struggle be in vain? Abandon thy knees and heads to the Earth before thy Lord and Eternal Master.'_ "**

Llyra raised a brow as Colin gestured to a skinny stick figure with fat lips, long stringy hair, a fanged crown and a bell shaped dress, sprawled over a two legged horse whilst holding a bow. **"Princess Zelda, collapsed over the stained mane of her beloved steed calleth to Link, the Hero whom resteth upon his blistered sword. _'Oh Link, what shalt we do? The end draws nigh, I fear the goddess of fortune hath cast her gaze from us, in lieu that we may perish beneath yond merciless crimson eye in the sky. Our last breath hath come at the behest of that yonder monster.'_ "**

Llyra pursed her lip. "…why is it I get the distinct feeling this didn't actually happen?"

Colin's conducting hand waved away her words, completing its dramatic journey by landing upon the radiant figure in the blessed triangular hat occupying the other end of the relief. Llyra resisted the urge to drop the buzzing rock on her sprightly narrator's toe as he concluded his cultured narration.

 **"…The Hero ascendeth despite the plight in his knees, and his sword—though fatigued—still riseth to pierce the moon before Zelda's eye. _'Nay, Zelda. Tis not the end so long as thee lift thy head. Though thy limbs grow weary, thou must not allow the flame to extinguish within, lest thou truly be damned…'_ "**

Llyra scoffed. "Nay Colin, I hate to be the crusher of thine dreams but he does not talk anything like that. At all. Ever."

Colin flung his hand momentarily back to the pig below the giant eye, as though in dramatic refusal of her interruption. _**"…fear not the flames of destruction which cometh from the ire of yond swine, fear only the doubts and fears which infest thy soul…"**_

Llyra was trembling, not at his words but because Joel's wondrous present wouldn't cease its rumbling (it had a lot in common with her stomach when she was hungry). She had to wonder whether that kid's judgement was worse than her own at times…as far as she was concerned, there was no secret in this stone relief other than how much she secretly wished to vandalize it by drawing red mustaches and horns on its hallmark figure. If there were some secret vault hidden behind it, it'd probably just be full of funday school portraits featuring That Guy looking like a firework with a face anyway.

 _ **"…for they be the final gatekeepers before cometh the dawn."** _Colin concluded his monologue with a sigh, like he'd descended into Death Mountain's famous hot springs. "The profound words of Four Eyes, what an inspiration!" He clutched his portrait to his chest like it were a pillow of fluffy fuzz. "Oh Farore, I feel so inspired right now, it's like my energy's maxed out! What about you, Llyra?" His enlightened face whirled towards hers, only to find that the spot where she'd been standing had emptied. He frowned, swiveling around in search of where she'd gone. "Llyra? Llyra?" His eyes found her at the other end of the hall, crouched back over their pile of junk.

Llyra was returning her pet rock to her bag after it'd finally ceased its whinnying for attention, and her hands moved to return the rest of her piggy bag's innards to their claustral home as well. Joel's attempt to send her long distance luck had worked about as well as the toilet flusher back home, no surprise there. She wondered why she bothered to keep the blasted gadget…maybe because the damper it'd brought on her mood wasn't much, being that she was literally damp anyway.

As she thought this, Colin squatted down across from her in silence. Llyra glanced up to find his eyes trying to read hers.

"…do you want to talk about it?"

She blinked. "…talk about what?"

His hands moved to join hers in packing away their things. "Whatever it is that's bothering you."

She chewed the inside of her cheek. Talk about what, how a sopping moldorm equipped with the gear in her stuffed pig has the gall to compete against a fierce deity, AKA the story of her life? Naah.

"…I'd rather talk up a kickass plan for our comeback into the knights' hall of fame, wouldn't you?"

He seated himself cross-legged in front of her. "…alright. Well in that case, do you…" She raised a brow. "…mind if I wear this?" His expression cracked into a grin as his finger fell upon the pointy green hat.

Immediately she scowled, and that invisible octorok was z-targetting her head again. Had she really been expecting him to say something profound? "Why, so you can streak around the halls, pretending you're That Guy?"

He shook his head. "No, it's to help us out! It might help me think more like him, then I'll be able to formulate the perfect plan to get us out of here in no time!"

Llyra snorted. If Colin thought more like That Guy, the floor would certainly blow out beneath them before a nondestructive solution came to mind. And Colin wondered where she got her reckless tendencies…please.

She waved her hand dismissively. "Knock yourself out."

He inhaled like a birthday child who'd just been given permission to eat all the ice cream in the freezer. Ever so carefully, he picked up the hat like some fragile glass sculpture worth more than his house, smoothing it between his fingers as though it were the fur of some legendary beast. "This…this fabric! Akkala Cotton, the best kind, embroidered using a herringbone stitch along the sides, exactly like the ones he wears…even the patterns are the same! And the length…nineteen point three inches long with a circumference of twenty three point six and a diameter of eight point one! And the cozy wool padding on the inside…this is a perfect replica!"

Llyra quirked a brow, zipping her piggy bag shut. "It is? How do you know? Wait, don't answer that."

"This is some top quality stuff, Llyra," he slipped his arm through to rub the woolly lining on the interior, "you gotta tell me where you got this!"

She snorted. That Guy probably bought his unfortunate collection of hats off the first thrift merchant he rolled past. Grandma, incidentally, probably got this one from his even more unfortunate closet. "Somewhere smelly and horrible," she droned. No lie there.

She watched with a lazy eye as Colin held the hat over his head like a coronation crown. He hesitated, sucking a breath in and squeezing his eyes shut before his trembling hands finally lowered the esteemed artifact onto his hair.

A splash of rouge shot like a syringe into his cheeks as the hat settled upon his mushroom coiffure, and with it she could almost see as a tremor thundered down his spine. Llyra rolled her eyes. He looked ready to spring through the roof.

"This…this is amazing!" He flexed his hands, as though they'd transformed into dragon claws, though they looked exactly as they had five seconds prior. "I feel…I feel fantastic, like my powers have increased!" He patted his titular helm. "With this on…I'll surely be able to come up with a winning plan of action! Could this be…the secret to his success?!" He began to laugh like a skullkid, and Llyra groaned as the echo of it bled into her ears.

"Congratulations," Llyra's voice dripped with a sarcasm that Colin couldn't quite hear through his new headgear. "Your defense is now up by twenty percent." He beamed her a thumbs up. "…and your dignity, down forty," she added under her breath.

She laid her chin down on the fluffy lump that was her piggy backpack, trying to imagine anyone getting half as excited about wearing any of the quirky hats in _her_ closet. The last time she'd tried to weave a hat, it'd consisted of bird nests and tree sap at camp, and the resulting sweet scent of it had attracted bees into her hair. Least to say it hadn't been such a popular hat when she'd offered to pass it around the campfire.

As Colin smoothed the tail of his new pet between his palms, Llyra pursed her lip. "…okay Lord Link, so what's the plan? Did the hat's telepathic powers help you locate where we are?"

He frowned. "It's supposed to do that?" His fingers adjusted its hem with a slight clockwise rotation. "Maybe I didn't put it on right, or maybe there's a switch…" He trailed off at Llyra's expression.

Colin cleared his throat. "…right as I was saying. The plan." He crossed his arms. "I was thinking, maybe we've been doing this backwards. Following a map didn't work, asking for directions didn't work, so let's forget navigating. Instead of _us_ trying to find _them_ , we need to let _them_ find _us_."

Llyra lifted a brow. "Oh, so you want to give out some kind of SOS?"

He stroked his chin. "More or less, we need to attract attention here somehow."

Llyra snickered, struck by one of her genius ideas. "…well, we _haven't_ tried screaming at the top of our lungs for help yet."

Colin frowned. "I'd like to keep at least ten percent of my dignity as a knight here, if that's at all possible.…"

She stroked the pink fur on her piggy bag. "…okay, let's think of what they do when someone gets stranded on a desert island. Y'know like, send out a smoke signal…?"

"Llyra I swear, if you're suggesting to start a fire in the middle of the hall…"

She pouted. "… _not_ what I meant! I was thinking more along the lines of a very, very loud noise."

He fixed her an expression as stern as her grandpa's. " _No_ explosions, Llyra!"

She scoffed. "Who said anything about explosions…we just need to make enough of a ruckus! Y'know, like…" she tossed her piggy into the air, and let it tumble back in her arms. "…a dance party!"

Colin chuckled. "You want to start a rock concert in the middle of the hall? I can't sing, and I'm pretty sure we're not gonna find any statues holding guitars around here…"

Llyra beamed. "No problem, I've got just the gadget for this job right here…" She slipped her hand into her damp jacket pocket and withdrew her cherished, always reliable comrade.

Colin raised a brow. "…and that's…what, exactly?"

She chuckled, rolling the copper tube between her fingers like a spindle of gold. " _This_ is the single best piece of equipment in Hyrule. This here…" she held it up as though it were a gift from the goddesses, "…is a treasure with over a thousand uses."

Colin's ears perked up like a dog on the lookout for a frisbee. "Ooh, is it one of those advanced Sheikah tech gizmos? (It doesn't explode, does it? I've heard lots of Sheikah gizmos self destruct if you press the wrong button…)"

Llyra snapped it open, and his eyes fell upon the incredible form of…a telescope? The thrill faded from his face like a whistling tea kettle fizzing out. Llyra's face was beaming like a fluorescent lamp though, and his brows heightened at the satisfaction molding her features.

"You _are_ weird," he said.

"Says the fanboy with a green hat on."

"Yeah, I guess," he grinned. "What are the thousand uses?"

"Not sure, I haven't thought of them all yet."

He chortled. "You carry that around with you all the time?"

Llyra shot him a glare. "Oh is that funny to you? You've got a wooden spoon in your backpack so I'd shut up if I were you." She twirled her metallic sidekick affectionately. "My telescope is _always_ handy. Right now for example, one of its secret uses is as a musical instrument!"

His lips pressed themselves into a taut line. "…I'm, almost afraid to ask but…how exactly does it work as a musical instrument?"

She grinned, raising the telescope over her head. "…like this!" Her arm catapulted down to strike the floor, but Colin precluded the hit by catching her wrist.

"—on second thought…" he stared at her telescope like it were the dormant arm of an Eyegore, "…I think the rock concert might be a bad idea."

Llyra frowned. "…what about making noise?"

He grinned sheepishly. "…upon further deliberation, it's probably best for us to just lay low and wait for someone to come by, don't you think?" He tapped her telescope. "How about for now, you stick to using your telescope the way its actually intended? I mean, just use it to scout around. Classes are starting in an hour, it can't be long now."

Llyra pouted, patting her telescope as though she were comforting a rejected pet. Alas, she was used to this kind of behavior towards her poor, misconstrued partner. Some day soon, she'd show them all just what it was made of.

Colin, after picking himself off the floor with his bag slung over the shoulder, drew his eyes to where a glass banister ran in a wide square around the center of the spacious open hall, thus creating a balcony over the lower floor.

He gestured towards the center with his head. "I'll keep watch down below, you lookout up here."

Llyra scowled, rising off the floor after him. So his fancy hattidness's genius plan was to sit tight and wait? Who knew how long that'd take? She'd bet all those lazy students were still snuggling in their beds right about now…

There was a gossip stone in front of the banister, and Llyra kneed the stone, watching it squash and stretch like a chuchu.

 _"The time is 7:02."_ It intoned.

Llyra grumbled. She glanced over at Colin, only to find him admiring his hatted reflection in the glass with a grin goofier than a clown. She groaned, turning away with her telescope raised to her eye. This could be the longest hour of her life (and that was saying something, after the time she'd spent listening to an hour long lecture from a gossip stone at the library…)

"Hey!" Colin interrupted her train of thought. "I think I saw something moving on the lower floor! Someone might be there!"

"Where?!" Llyra whirled her telescope towards him a tad faster than his reflexes could handle, delivering him a slight knock to the head.

"Ow!" he snapped. "Would you watch how you move with that thing? It could knock someone's head off!"

"Where did you see someone?" Llyra lowered her telescope for a broader view at the floor below.

"Uh, it was over there…" He pointed to where a colored beanstalk was growing out of a trough from a deku flower pad, coiling around a column on the opposite side. The beanstalk was as still as the empty benches beside it, without so much as a shifting shadow in its vicinity.

Llyra glanced at Colin as though he'd duped her into believing she'd won a cabana in the mail. "…you sure it wasn't the powers of your hat working their mysterious magic on your eyes just now?"

"Hey!" he bristled, "I swear there was someone down there, or something! I saw the door swing open and—"

"—Colin," Llyra tucked the telescope under one arm. "I think maybe you should take the hat off. It's cutting off the circulation to your brain and causing you to hallucinate." She snatched it off before he could utter a plea to the Naydra statue down the hall.

"Wait—no!" He moaned as though he were a witch whose source of power had just been squandered. "Give it back!" he wailed like a kargarok, trying to grab it back, but Llyra leapt deftly out of the way.

"Forget it!" She stepped again and again from his persistent lunges, like an experimental tap dancer performing a frantic improvisation to the off-beat flailing of his arms, until she was backed against the banister. She leaned over it as far as she could with her arm outstretched, hat in hand.

"Back off or I'll drop the hat!"

"NO Llyra!" he wheezed as though she were threatening the life of an innocent babe. "That's a premium grade Link replica hat, I can't let you jeopardize its mint condition!"

He leaned aggressively over the rail to grab the hat, but as his hand approached, she snatched the telescope from under her other arm and thrust it into the hat so it hung off the end of her telescope like a mech-extension of her arm. There! Now it was really out of his reach (and that was yet another use for her telescope—use number eighteen!)

"Give it up, Colin!" she bellowed. "The hat's gotta go!"

"Never!" he shouted like a valorous soldier in the face of impregnable odds on the battlefield.

To her surprise, he leapt onto the banister like an agile cat and pounced forward in what was sure to be a winning lunge.

"Almighty Farore," Llyra hissed as she saw his arm reaching too far. "It's just a dumb hat Colin! Get down before you fall!"

"Got it!" His fingers seized the hat tip in triumphant midair as though nabbing elusive rare chu jelly right off the ceiling just as his balance disappeared out from under him, and Llyra watched with a shriek stuck in her throat as his body tumbled forth into space—her arms shot out and she caught his leg, clutching it fast over the rails as he dangled upside down like a keese with a torn wing.

"I got the hat!" he shot her an upside down grin with a thumbs up to the floor (as though that were the most important thing in this situation).

"…Colin…stupid!" She had both arms clenched around his knee while his boot kicked at her chin, and her stomach pressed so far into the railing she thought her torso would snap off. What did Colin eat for breakfast, a whale? He weighed more than a yacht packed with elephants!

She managed to lug him up half a foot or so before Colin wrapped his arms around the column head touching his nose, and his swinging foot was able to bend towards his head and plant, albeit awkwardly.

"You can let go of my foot now!" he clamored up, "I can manage to climb back up from here!"

Llyra released his boot in a heave of relief, draping over the banister like a dead washcloth. "…you just had…to…" she huffed between words like an ailing runner after a sprint, "…go after the…stupid hat…" she gasped. "…so…dumb…how could you…" Just as those words left her lips, her telescope slipped from under her arm (as though to challenge her point) and with it she shrieked and lunged in. Her hand closed over the telescope just as she realized she was no longer connected to the railing.

 _Oops,_ she thought, as gravity took over.

"Llyra!" Colin gasped as he saw her drop past where he clutched at the column head like a koala. "Grab my foot! Or the column! Anything!" He tried to see below, but his head wouldn't twist down more than thirty degrees.

Llyra had squeezed her eyes shut, telescope cradled to her chest. Was this it, she thought? After all her talk of making something of herself, she was going out splat in the middle of the school hall without even setting foot into her first class. What a pathetic way to die. Maybe she'd win a world record for most pathetic death in the history of Hyrule.

Then she felt a pair of strong arms catch her, and a soft, mature, feminine voice spoke, _**"Are you alright?"**_ It sounded like the sweet voice of a princess, and Llyra wondered as her heart skipped a beat, who was this female senior knight? It couldn't be…Princess Zelda?!"

"Oh yes," she breathed, "I'm fine thanks to yo—" she opened her eyes to greet the lovely face of her savior.

And then she screamed.

o | O | o

* * *

 **NEXT ::** Chapter 05—The Legend of Llyra (Part II/II)

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

I realize this not much of an eventful chapter, ironically that's the reason I ended up delaying it. Initially the chapter had been done, then last minute I read it over and decided it needed some drastic change. I rewrote it 4 times after that, didn't like any of the rewrites until I got to this one. On the previous rewrite, there was a 9 page digression where Colin and Aryll/Llyra ended up in a puzzle room which I cut out because it was too self-contained and didn't contribute enough to the plot.

My main issue was trying to modify this chapter without introducing any drastic changes (RE: attempting drastic change without adding drastic change, doesn't work), since there's a chain of events starting in the next chapter on that I didn't want to mess with. At the same time, there are some conversations that needed to take place in this chapter, so fast forwarding wasn't an option either. Basically, my hands felt tied in terms of what could be added before next chapter's events, but I hope the way it turned out is still enjoyable despite being lesser eventful. (Also, I had a split opinion on whether to cut the Stone Relief and the Stone of Agony, but I decided they was entertaining enough to leave in.)

There _is_ however some important backstory and groundwork being laid in this chapter, and you should get a sense of some underlying drama that'll come into play later.

On another note, I was hoping to stick to a pace of publishing a chapter a week, and though I will not always be able to keep that pace, I'll still be aiming for it. Actually, next chapter might be out at the end of this week since I think it's almost done (then again I'd better not jinx myself).

Fair warning that the next chapter is long. It's also a top candidate for funniest chapter though, so I hope you'll look forward to it!

Comments welcome ;)

/~/ Farosie


	5. The Legend of Llyra (II)

_*Note from author: due to the length, consider this chapter a 2-in-1 holiday special, because it's highly unlikely I'll allow another chapter to be this long.  
_

 _._

 **Ch 05—The Legend of Llyra (Part II/II)**  
 **-:-:-{** Vol 01— The Knightly Way Thoust Finds an Assembly **}-:-:-**

* * *

"What happened?! Llyra?!" Colin attempted to swivel his head, but his neck wouldn't twist anymore more than a congested bottle cap. The sound of Llyra's shriek had sent a mutant frenzy into his legs, and he tried to scamper up the height of the column at the speed of a gecko, (unsuccessfully I might add) nearly slipping off in the process.

 **" _No need for panic,_ "** sang the sweet female voice. _**"I will return you both to safety at once."**_ Colin felt a tug at the back of his collar levitate him out of his scramble as though he were weightless as a feather, floating him all the way back over the railing and setting him down upon his feet with the gentle descent of a hot air balloon. A sense of awe filled his lungs as he exhaled in relief.

"Thank you," he breathed, rotating on his heel. "You're an incredible knigh—aghhhHHH!" His foot stumbled backwards as his eyes collided with a hulking figure floating several feet off the ground. Before him, a multi-armed robot loomed like a metal spider with the head of a silver idol and a dozen clawed cords contracting like snakes out of its sides. Cradled in two of the robot's arms, Llyra stared up as speechless as though she'd just discovered her mother were a moblin in disguise. The robot retracted the spare robotic arm that had flung out to grab Colin, folding it away inside its transforming hips while alighting upon the floor. Llyra was set upon her dumbstruck sandals, and she stumbled to the railing in a mute daze, clutching her telescope as though it were the only proof of her sanity.

 _ **"I'm sorry if I startled you,"**_ spoke the sweet voice from a mismatched robotic face. **_"I simply saw you in danger and acted accordingly. For future reference, safety rule number 309 states that students should avoid leaning over the rails for their own safety. These rails are newly installed, and quite expensive. You would not wish to anger the management team by damaging them."_**

"I'm sorry but…" Colin choked out the words Llyra couldn't since she hadn't regained the ability to speak. "…who are you?" ("Or what is she," thought Llyra.)

The robot leered at them out luminous blue goggle-like eyes, with hooped handles for ears that rotated like meat skewers, and Colin swallowed as a momentary image of being assaulted by this cyber menace overtook his mind in the instant before it spoke. _ **"Oh, how rude of me not to introduce myself!"** _the robot tuned, her jaw bopping up and down, _**"You must be new students since I do not recognize you in my database. My name is Cherry, Administrative Assistant at The Grand Academia for United Knights of Hyrule. It is always a pleasure meeting jejune neophytes of the Hyrulian order!"**_ This perfectly ordinary greeting was accompanied by the robot's eyes flashing three different colors while her head spun around like it were on a stick.

Llyra pinched her cheeks to scatter the swelling stupefaction in them. _Get it together, Llyra!_ She certainly wasn't used to technology like this back home (the extent of snazzy tech they had on hand were the color pictoboxes she had to save sixth months' allowance to afford) but if she wanted to impress her fellow peers as a Knight Wonder, she had to take every multi-armed surprise in stride, even if it came in the form of a walking talking flying nightmare machine with the voice of a siren. Central Hyrule really was something else! She leaned towards Colin in a wide eyed daze. "Hey…what'd she call us just now?"

Colin though, seemed more relieved. "Oh!" His face lit in recognition like a lantern flicked on. "So you're the Cherry I've heard about!" He whispered back to Llyra. "My dad's talked about her! I heard she's some kind of Sheikah Animatronic Furnace that they added to Administration last year."

Llyra frowned, stroking her telescope as though it could infuse her with a sense of calm to offset her culture shock. "They hired a robot on administration?"

 _ **"That is correct, jejune neophyte,"** _Cherry chimed, _**"but no need to be shy, all students call me by the name Robbie gave me, Cherry,"** _She raised two of her robotic arms in what was likely supposed to be a friendly gesture (though neither Llyra nor Colin could be sure). _**"There is no need to whisper around me. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the Academy, I am here to assist. Providing aid to students is a part of my daily responsibilities after all."**_

Llyra leaned in to whisper anyway. "This Robbie person must be some kind of nutcase for naming a robot…"

Cherry's neck shot out like a giraffe's before Colin could open his mouth, and it looped through the air until it rested a shoulder's length from her two spectators, lurching them both off their feet as though a rug under them had been pulled. _ **"Professor Robert, my creator,"** _she sang into Llyra's twice-culture shocked face, **_"is the department head of academics, and leading professor of Technology classes here at the Academy. Though he prefers to simply be called, 'Robbie.' Is there anything else I can assist you with?"_**

Llyra pressed her open palm steadily into Cherry's cheek for a little much needed breathing room as she climbed off the floor. _You can assist by not scaring me half to death,_ she thought.

Cherry's head craned slightly to the side, peering down at Llyra from its airborne perch. _**"Student, your clothes appear to be damp. Please wait while I have you instantly desiccated."**_ Llyra only had a split second to worry about what desiccated meant before Cherry's jaw slung down, and a shot of hot wind blasted forth from her fluorescent blue mouth as though out from an overinflated gust jar. After several lengthy moments of being roared through the ears, Llyra found, upon feeling at her sideburns, that they'd been baked into back-pointing spikes of hair, with every drop of moisture sucked out. Her clothes too felt like they'd been parched in the shade of a flame talus for an hour.

Colin whistled, inspecting the handiwork of their unexpected good samaritan's surprise blowdrying technique. "Wow, that was…effective."

Cherry's neck retracted, and the dispatched head returned to its significantly less alarming perch upon her mechanical shoulders. _**"No need to thank me,"** _Cherry trilled, _**"I take joy in my duties. If you have any questions for me—or any questions about the academy in general at all, I'm happy to answer them."**_

Llyra ironed her sideburns back down to her shoulders. She most certainly had a lot of questions scampering through her head, such as who in their right mind thought recruiting this metal box of surprises into a hall monitor was a good idea, but then a spark of inspiration burst like a firecracker in her head. Did Miss crazy faced robot here really just say she'd answer any question about the Academy…any question at all? She cast a shifty glance at Colin, and he watched as a slow grin worked its way onto her face like pancake batter spreading in a pan.

"So…" she drawled, turning her impish eyes onto Cherry, "you know… _everything_ there is to know about this Academy, is that right?" She looked as mischievous as a child who'd just discovered they could shoot fire beams out of their eyes.

"Llyra…" Colin bit his lip, sensing an onslaught of bogus questions about to erupt from her mouth like a stream of infinite sword beams.

 _ **"I know much,"** _Cherry responded with the pleasantry of a professional hotel host serving fleet-lotus tea. _ **"Though I cannot know everything there is to be known, most student questions fall within my database of information. Therefore if you have a question, there is a high probability that I will be able to answer."**_

"Sweet!" Llyra beamed like she'd just been given permission to wheel a ship into a cyclone. "In that case, here's a question. Why doesn't this school have doors to the outside?!" That had been nagging on her long enough already.

Cherry's eyes blinked as though computing her question. _ **"There are plenty of doors leading outside, but most are currently deactivated."** _She motioned to the adjacent glass hall from which light flooded, dispatching a claw to approach one of those infernal blue diamond switches that had been causing Llyra headaches all morning from way, way up on the wall. _**"All outer doors use motion-sensitive switches which are automatically raised out-of-range and deactivated before school hours, and at night when locking up. However, a student broke into the control room early this morning and made a wreck of the security system. As a result, these switches are temporarily out of commission along with the school's security cameras. The issue has not yet been rectified due to the orientation assembly that is currently going on. It should be resolved shortly after the assembly ends."**_

"Wait…" Llyra gasped, "…security cameras?!" She'd only heard of such things existing from the idle gossip of fancy-faced tourists in late night cafés, but to think those advanced pictographs were the norm here! Though, she'd expected as much from the reputation of this Academy, it was still a shock to hear it confirmed. That meant any misstep she performed in these high halls would be recorded for her esteemed professors to gaze down their noses at…she gulped.

Hang on, did bot lady here say they'd been deactivated all morning? She bit her lip, feeling a trickle of sweat run down her cheek as Colin watched her out the corner of his eye. That would mean there was no record of what happened in the Weapon Hall! She knew Colin was thinking it too.

"Hey Cherry…" Her eyes drifted to the cow heads on the wall, as though looking for a less harrying subject to wrangle. "…what's with the weird decor? It's like it was vomited out out of Ganon's innards."

Cherry's robotic face blinked. _**"Please clarify your question. What issue is there with the decor? There is nothing wrong that I can see."**_

Llyra scowled. This bot might have a head full of plenty of things worth her envy, but certainly none of those things was a sense of taste. "Oh really?" she drawled, "Well maybe that's because your vision is worse than a hinox missing its one eyeball—" Colin latched a hand onto her shoulder and she whirled towards him with a start. _Let's not,_ his eyes warned. She glanced away with a roll of her own eyes, but conceded his point anyway. It probably wasn't such a great idea to pick a fight with a ten-armed flying robot after all.

Colin looked about ready to dive into the question game himself, and he pinned the blinking robot with an inquisitive grin of his own. "My turn!" He raised the bit of green cloth pressed firmly between his fingers so the light could ravish it like a hunk of gold. "Where can we find Link?"

Llyra's eyes hit the ceiling with a grumble, but Colin shot her a grin like he were borrowing her rupees to win her a stuffed kikwi from a crane game.

 _ **"My apologies,"** _Cherry remarked, _ **"but I have strict orders not to disclose any information regarding Him of whom you speak to inquiring students."**_

"Figures," Colin frowned. "Bet lots of students ask."

"How about Princess Zelda?" Llyra piped. "Do you know if she's a student here?"

 _ **"Apologies, but I also cannot disclose any information regarding Her Highness."**_

Llyra leaned in beside Colin. "If Princess Zelda is at this school," she whispered, "I'll bet she's got a secret passageway leading from here all the way to Hyrule Castle!" She swiveled back to Cherry. "Can you show us where all the secret doors and secret passageways in the school are?!"

Colin pressed a hand to his forehead like he were pressing an ice pack over a wound. "Llyra, please…"

 _ **"Apologies,"**_ Cherry chanted, _ **"but I have no information to share regarding that."**_

Llyra frowned. "She's not a very helpful robot, is she?" She whispered.

"Don't be silly," he muttered back. "She's even better than what we were looking for!" He threw the droid a grin like he were about to ask it for free pizza. "Cherry, you're familiar with the layout of the school, right?"

 _ **"Certainly, navigating the academy is simple and easy as rotating your head."**_ Her head revolved in a complete circle for effect.

Llyra scowled. Maybe in a universe where her head was a detachable flying machine full of imported data, she'd think that too!

Cherry plodded towards them on her collapsable rollers. _ **"Are you students unfamiliar with the layout of our esteemed academy? I would be happy to instill you with a better sense of your whereabouts. Here, let us start with the basics. The Academy is divided into three trisectors split into Combat, Magic and Academia. Currently, we are—"**_

"—slow down, just a moment, Cherry." Colin cut in. "So just to confirm, you could lead us anywhere in the school we ask?"

 _ **"Theoretically, yes. Certain areas are off limits to students, however. I cannot take you to any restricted areas without express permission from the headmaster."**_

"Restricted areas!" Llyra whispered to Colin. "I wonder what those are!"

"Forget that," he hushed back. "We could have her lead us to the assembly now, or the entrance, or the front office so we can report the…" he shook his head. "Wait a minute, I bet we don't even need to go there now! Cherry's part of the administration herself, that means we should be able to report it directly to her, right here!"

Llyra cringed like a magtail had just pinched her ankle. That's right, she had agreed to report the incident. But now that she was faced with actually doing it… She could feel that bubbling sensation starting up again in her gut as though she'd eaten some rotten reekfish before breakfast. "Uh, about that…" She flitted her fingers through her hair, hoping her cheeks didn't reveal the jittering in her nerves. "How about we… hold off on that a bit?"

Colin creased his brow like a father scolding his child for flicking the vegetables off his plate. "Llyra! We said we'd report it!"

She flushed. "Y-yeah but…but maybe Cherry doesn't take reports from students!"

 _ **"Nonsense,"**_ Cherry chimed in, _ **"I most certainly do accept reports from students…"** _Her eyes flickered as she spoke, _ **"…attendance reports, status reports, conduct reports, incident reports…in fact, I received an unfortunate incident report just earlier on the state of our most esteemed Weapon Hall."**_

Llyra's face went ashen and she nearly dropped her telescope on her toe. She and Colin exchanged a glance. "Oh…did you? And…and what was in the report?"

Cherry's eyes shuttered. _ **"Well you see, the Weapon Hall would normally have been locked had security not been tampered with this morning. Sadly, it was found completely decimated. all main staff are currently occupied at the freshmen assembly, meaning that only the custodial staff have been able to deal with the disturbance thus far. The hall has been quarantined off, but an investigation is yet to be conducted. If you have any information regarding the matter, it would be of great assistance."**_

Llyra bit her lip. Colin's eyes were drilling her to speak much like a coach about to push his swim student off a diving board.

She swallowed. Well…it was now or never. If Colin was right, they'd probably get a scolding, detention for a month (which hopefully did not involve listening to the lecturing of a gossip stone), a bit of infamy and whispers in the halls, but nothing they couldn't recover from in the long run, and they'd be free to spread their wings as knights after that. If Colin was wrong, well…it was better not to think about that. She stroked the lens on her telescope, ignoring the strangeness of confessing to a lump of metal with a flashing head.

"Just get it over with, you'll feel better!" Colin whispered. "Here, I'll start off to make it easier." He cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders as though to set a prime example of being a model knight, speaking loud and clear for all the deaf people that were (or weren't) in the room. "…Cherry!" His voice boomed at her. "We'd like to make an…an incident report!"

 _ **"One moment please…"** _She ingested his stirring words with a mechanical blinking of her saucer eyes. _**"…preparing to record student report…"**_ Cherry's head revolved like a wound up music box as her eyes began to flash red. _**"…preparation complete. Students, please state, in three hundred seconds or less, the details of your incident report. Bear in mind, this report may be subject to close scrutiny by the entire administrative board, so take care to mind your wording. You may begin your report in five, four, three…"**_

Llyra's head shot up as though she'd just been zapped by a lightning rod, and her eyes channeled Colin a look of alarm. Mind her _wording?_ All of a sudden, this was feeling less like a haphazard conversation, and more like a surprise final presentation—only instead of stressing over a grade, it was the fate of her future, her legacy, and her entire life on the line! No pressure, right?!

Colin's eyes were less frantic than hers. _We got this!_ They reassured her.

 _ **"…two, one."** _Their animatronic consort ceased flashing her eyes, and projected a steady red glow at her anxious subjects. _**"Students, please commence your report now."**_

Colin heaved a deep sigh like he were preparing to dive to the depths of Lake Hylia. Then he flashed a grin, and his hand delivered an awkward wave at his imaginary audience. "Uh, Hello…Headmaster Rhoam, and anyone else on the board, we—" he gestured to himself and to Llyra as she pinched herself in an attempt to distract her nerves, "—wanted to tell you that…we were the ones who accidentally messed up the Weapon Hall because—"

"—because our map was as useless as an ancient screw!" Llyra blurted out. Colin's brows ticked up at her tactful outburst. She grimaced. As usual, her mouth had picked the best time to stop communicating with her brain.

"…no Llyra," he cut in, "the problem _wasn't_ the map, it was that you ignored my warning not to touch anything and—"

"—and became a walking catastrophe," her mouth babbled on, "you're right, that happens to me periodically—"

"—honestly," Colin piped back in, "she's a threat to herself more than anyone else, you shouldn't hold it too much against her—"

"—yeah!" Llyra fussed. "I took a worse rap than all your statues of the Royal Knights combined! I mean compared to the near death of a fellow student knight, is the wreckage of a few soon-to-be forgotten statues all that important?" She tapped her telescope against her chest as though to emphasize that she were no statue. "Me on the other hand, I was almost crushed to death by that giant orb—It came after me with a vengeance like I'd murdered its whole dumb orbed family! You gotta have some sympathy."

Colin rewarded her rousing speech by stepping on her toe. ("Ow!" she hissed.)

"What Llyra _means_ to say," he blinked his eyes like a camera shutter at her as though to tell her to pipe down, "is that unfortunate circumstance is what led us upon the Weapon Hall—"

"—which by the way," Llyra piped in again, "was supposed to be locked. So whoever those guys are who are in charge of security that allowed some student to break-in this morning, you should fire them, or punish them instead of blaming us—" Colin's nosy elbow smashed into her mouth and she bit her tongue.

"—it was _our_ fault for entering," he scolded her with an empathic look, "and then we had the not-so-commendable idea to duel, but only because we had a moment of bad judgement—"

"—what!?" Llyra rattled her head in disgust like he'd declared they were peahats before the Queen. (She'd been called a peahat before after all, one time when a seagull had sat on her sunhat pooping while she tried to make some quick cash in an improvised skit on the beach. It wasn't a nickname she was glad to remember.) "No it's because we're—"

"—lowly fools, very lowly fools," Colin cut in again. He pressed a hand down on her head to make her bow forward like a bent straw, but she smacked it away like smacking at pesky keese. _Stop it!_ Her eyes hissed at him.

"No," her sour voice corrected, "we dueled because we wanted to prove our worth as knights who protect Hyrule! In fact, with so many of your _lazy_ students asleep right now, you should be thrilled to have students as zealous as us! Only it didn't go so well because of my calamitous luck, so while we were dueling, that sword called 'THE SWORD' or whatever broke off and went flying right into Headmaster Rhoam's nose!"

An awkward silence filled the hall as they stared at Cherry, animatronic assistant with ten or more killer arms, half in fear that one of them would lash out to rip their own noses off, but she merely blinked her flashing eyes as her metal ears took in their report. _**"I am listening,"** _she droned with as much zest as a pebblit. _ **"You may continue."**_

Colin took a deep breath before carrying on. "It was unfortunate, but sir, we couldn't leave your statue's nose like that either. I mean, what if it was taken as some kind of mean-spirited insult, or a sign left by insurgents? Which is why—"

"—why I tried to get 'THE SWORD' out of his nose, and that's when that giant orb viciously attacked me from above—"

"—she means," Colin butted in again, "it fell down and almost bashed her in—"

"—it was an attack!" she hissed. "Anyway. It was in completely justified anger and self-defense that I kicked the orb, which then shot around the room and—"

"—destroyed all the knights and obliterated all their weaponry?" Colin finished eloquently, as though he'd given up on their report sounding halfway decent.

Llyra, however, was just getting started, and with a storm of words brewing at her tongue, she glowered at Colin's choice of language. Could he make them sound anymore like a couple of combustible dumbbells if he tried? He might as well ask for them to be skewered and fried for the headmaster and his legion to gorge on for dinner! She seethed. "Oh is that how you wanna tell it, Colin? While you're at it, why not tell them we're messengers of death from the underworld sent here on orders from Ganon? Yeah, that'll help our case! Oh I know, and you can tell 'em we're gonna nuke the school too!"

Colin's mouth twitched, and he cast a cursory glance at Cherry, acutely aware that their words were still being recorded as part of the report. "Look, you may not like to hear this…" he spoke in a hushed tone, "…but I don't think there's a nice way of saying the hall got demolished, and they're gonna see the state of it anyway so there's no point in dressing it up." His lip cracked into a grin. "By the way, we can't be minions of Ganon if _you're_ already Ganon, Llyra."

Her eyes rolled back. "Hilarious, Colin, I'm laughing through the mucus in my nostrils." She twirled back towards their two-eared ten-armed metal-headed audience who appeared to be listening with the attentiveness of a stone talus. "Cherry," Llyra piped again, "please disregard everything he's saying in your report." Colin scowled as she continued, "Anyhow, though I kicked the orb with completely harmless intent, it just so happened to cause some unforeseen chaos, leading to…"

"….the horrible catastrophic destruction and ruin of everything you see in there now?"

Llyra scowled. "Colin!"

"Okay fine, you say it in your own words then!" he zipped his mouth, crossed his arms and stepped melodramatically back.

" _Thank_ you," Llyra hooted, pacing around the hall like a detective lamenting the disruptions of her bumbling sidekick. She sucked in a breath as though relieved a mosquito bite on her toe had stopped itching. "As I was saying, I kicked that giant orb, which sent all the other orbs rallying around until…" she huffed, and Colin watched with an expectant brow as her tongue fumbled for a more _positive_ way to describe the ravaged state of the room…and found no such words (other than to say it was positively razed). She grumbled, "…alright fine so it blew everything to smithereens!" Colin nodded and patted her on the back like a therapist approving the progress of their patient as she concluded, "And that's how everything broke, The End. Oh except for this one sword that didn't break. Right Colin?"

"The point is," Colin sighed, "it was one big accident, due to some bad decisions on our part and horrible luck, and we're really, really sorry."

"Please don't expel us!" Llyra slapped her hands together in prayer at Cherry as though her metallic head could determine whether the headmaster would be hammering their skulls in an hour. "We'll do better as knights if you give us a chance!"

Colin joined her fervent plea with a theatrical fling of his arms. "Yeah, we'll make it up to the Academy in any way we can! Hyrule community service maybe? Or, or help rounding up criminals? I'm sure they could use some extra hands on night patrol catching those thieves down in castle town…like that prancing thief that's been dognapping in the back alleys!"

"I'm great at catching rampant cuccos," Llyra added as though that were especially worth including on a resumé, "And collecting soup ingredients, and shooing away unwanted guests, and kicking troublemakers out of shops, and cleaning poo out of your yard if you need someone to do that…" Colin's brow lifted, she shrugged.

Colin cleared his throat. "Anyway, we, like honorable knights, shall do anything you ask to make up for our mistake! So please…be merciful?"

They fell into a tense silence, awaiting the first word of judgement like waiting for a ticking bomb to roll off a shelf. Cherry, in a total state of mechanical oblivion as to their tension, merely bent her neck at them in blind inquiry.

 _ **"…is there anything else you wish to add?"** _She spoke in her unchanging pleasant tone of professionalism.

"Uh," Colin mumbled.

"Yeah," Llyra cut in suddenly, "how about, if you hang us, we'll come back as ghosts and haunt the knights of Hyrule till they die? Just as a quick by the way." She set her hands to her hips. Threats were reliable as a last resort, right? That was something she'd picked up courtesy of That Guy.

Colin scowled at her. "Llyra!" He delivered Cherry a bashful grin, as though to apologize for Llyra's brutish words.

She shrugged. "What? That'll keep them on their toes—OW!" She grimaced as Colin stepped on her toe.

"I think you'd better keep on yours!" he muttered in a not-so-low hush. "We're trying to apologize, remember? You'd better watch what you say…or do you _want_ to see the demise of our any chance at their forgiveness here?!"

Llyra grimaced. She couldn't help the fact that her mouth didn't always take orders from her brain. Besides, Colin was starting to sound like her grandpa did after she'd let her neighbor's pig eat That Guy's Hylian Shield.

 _ **"Anything else?"** _Cherry remarked.

Colin's mouth contorted into an awkward grin. "Uh…hey Dad, in case you're listening…" His fingers massaged the nape of his neck, "…please don't axe my fishing lessons on Thursdays alright? I'll eat nothing but bee larva if I have to over losing that." Llyra scowled. That Guy was obsessed with fishing too, he used to stink up the house with the ton of Hylian Catfish he'd lug home in an algea-caked chest.

Cherry's eyes were beginning to flash. _ **"This report will close in ten seconds time. Wrap up your statements, students."**_

Llyra nudged her distracted companion. "Colin," she whispered, "we should close out strong, don't you think?"

He lifted a brow at her, though his nervous grin seemed to agree.

She cleared her throat. "Excuse me, Headmaster Rhoam, and every other bigwig on the school board that might be listening, I just want to make it clear that if you let this slide, you'll be glad you did, because we…" Her feet flung apart like she were bracing to catch a charging goat, and her arm flung up towards the heavens. "…are gonna make it to the top!"

"Yeah!" Colin chirped. "We understand how precious Hyrule is and we vow to make a worthy impact! Right Llyra?"

She beamed like a star on an interview. "Swear all, pinky boko undersweat!"

Colin frowned. "Llyra, it's underwear—"

"—whatever, they get the idea."

 _ **"Appended."**_ Cherry chimed. _**"Any last words?"** _She spoke this in her usual delightful tone, but her word choice sent a foreboding shiver down both their spines.

"Tell my parents I love them!" Colin blurted out like they were his final words before a beheading. Llyra grimaced, watching Colin's quivering boot drill into the floor. So much for his sun-bursting confidence from earlier.

 _ **"If that is all,"** _Cherry's eyes blinked like a printer, _ **"I will be closing this student report now."**_

Llyra inhaled like she'd just finished auditioning for a play that involved turning her legs into jello. Colin was biting his nails so hard they dangled half off his fingers, and the two shared the same antsy grin.

"Still think we'll be here tomorrow?" Llyra whispered, stroking her telescope.

"How about this, I'll buy you the best ocarina you can find in town if we are."

"Ocarinas are overrated, get me one of those newfangled electric violins."

"Deal."

Cherry's head was busy bopping to the electric signals playing in her head, until finally it settled upon her shoulders, and she gave them a mechanical smile. _ **"Rejoice students, your report has been prepared and shall be delivered with diligence. Your words have been catalogued. I will be transcribing them just as you have spoken them to the Headmaster and administrative board, whom I will be heading off to find shortly."**_ Her eyes strobed through various colors before fixing directly on her subjects in a neon green. _**"The report will be finalized after an identification scan. Please wait to be scanned."**_

Llyra hissed like she'd just been told a Rope were about to sink its teeth into her neck. "…scanned?" she breathed.

 _ **"You are new students,"** _Cherry sang, _ **"and as such, I need to verify your profiles to be included with the report. It will only take a moment. Please hold still."**_

"Wait!" Llyra's shrieked just as Cherry's eyes shot out a green beam of light. The beam scanned the two students head to toe and vanished quicker than a blade trap could sweep her off her feet. Had Llyra blinked, she would've missed it.

 _ **"Scan complete."** _The robot chimed. _**"Your names are Aryll and Colin. Associated identities are now indexed in my database and cross-matched with your student profiles. You are now fully recognized. Relevant student information to be delivered along with report is as follows."** _Cherry turned towards Llyra who'd frozen as though the robot were a freezard breathing ice at her. _ **"You are filed under Aryll. Your age is fourteen. You are a natural blonde. Your eye color is blue. Your height is four foot three. Your weight is one hundred and seven point three pounds. Your birthday is March twenty forth. You have one sibling, a brother. Your brother's name is—"**_

As soon as she heard the word brother, it was panic mode—an alarm set off in her body that sent a shock of electricity bolting to her fingertips, and at once they moved to stop the utterance of the name that was coming. One moment, her telescope was causally in her hands, and the next—WHAM—it was colliding like a rocket into the side of Cherry's head. (In slow motion, Llyra's mouth made the shape of an 'O' as she watched Cherry's head flicker red, deforming before her eyes into a crumpled waning gibbous.) The impact clanged like a gong throughout the halls and Llyra wondered at how they weren't thrown backwards as her thoughts were overtaken by the reverberation of that one lone—  
—SMASH.

o | O | o

The good news for Llyra was that the disturbingly pleasant voice of the robot that knew too much had stopped speaking. The bad news was that when Llyra opened her eyes, Cherry's head was busted sideways like a broken lollipop staring at her with its vertical strobing eyes.

In that moment, as Cherry's eyes glared out at her from their sideways perch in an accusatory warning that sent the poison mites crawling through her toes, Llyra could sense it—her cursed knack for trouble, strong as ever. She could sense the downward spiral of chaos that was coming to strike her hard skull. A legacy of trouble, it seemed, could not be avoided for her without a head-splitting fight. Faced with Cherry's shuttering eyes, she could only think one thing:  
 _Oops._

(On the bright side, her telescope smash was as effective as ever right? It was a real legacy maker of a weapon if she knew any. Use number nineteen for her telescope…bust the heads off fancy robots?)

Beside her, Colin's jaw hung the same way as Cherry's head. "What…" he started when he finally dug his voice out from where it'd been knocked, "…what in the name of Din did you do that for?!"

"Uhh—" Llyra fumbled for an excuse, "th-there was a… a walltula on her head!" She cringed. That was a lie, dammit. She glanced at Colin apologetically but his eyebrows had hiked way up his face.

"You're afraid of itty-bitty _walltulas_? That's a surprise coming from you, I'd have thought you had way thicker skin than that..."

Llyra paled like he'd just compared her to a wimpy little popo. "No!" She clamored. "That's not what I—"

 _ **"—C-c-c-colin a-a-a-and A-a-a-aryll,"**_ Cherry's voice sliced through their conversation, startling them off their twiddling toes with a voice that sounded as broken as her head. Colin gave Llyra a testy look. _See what you did?_ His eyes said. Her cheeks tinged a sheepish red.

"It's not…that big a deal, right?"

He rubbed his forehead like a migraine was pulsing there beneath his skin and raised a hard eye to hers. "That's advanced SHEIKAH tech you just cracked, Llyra, who knows how much she cost to build?!"

Llyra bit her lip. "M-maybe she's not that broken. Just…a little bumped in the head, right? Happens to me all the time and I'm always good as new after a proper nap on the roof, easy fix right…?"

 _ **"…a-a-and…A-a-a-a-a-arryll…"** _Cherry sputtered.

Colin's eyes flashed at her. "Oh and another thing…" he crossed his arms and leaned in, "… _Aryll_ , is it? I thought you said your name was _Llyra_."

The girl tensed beneath her foggy glasses, rolling the telescope between her fingers as she tried not to flinch from his prying gaze. She'd really been hoping he wouldn't notice that little slip, though she'd had a similar thought herself. The name on her student profile should've been Llyra after all. Just what kind of databases did this Cherry basket of informatic delights have access to?! Llyra wouldn't have been surprised if this terror knew the passcodes to every vault in Hyrule Castle!

She raised her head, meeting the question in Colin's gaze head on. This was no big deal after all, there was no need to lie. "…Aryll is my _old_ name," she admitted in earnest. "I changed it, so _don't_ call me that, alright? My name now is Llyra."

He frowned, a flicker of curiosity glistening in his eye. "Okay, but…why'd you change it?"

 _ **"—and—and A-a-a-aryll,"** _Cherry broke out again, _**"m-m-m-m-essed up t-t-tthe W-w-w-eapon Hall…"**_

The two paled at this jovial interjection. Llyra tapped her telescope, grateful for the interruption despite the dire context attached to it. "…this isn't the best time to talk about this, don't you think?" Colin lobbed her a grimace just as Cherry launched into a stirring speech inspired by Llyra's blow to the head.

 _ **"…C-c-c-colin a-a-a-and A-a-aryll m-m-messed up t-the W-w-weapon Hall…a-as an…w-warning…a-and…t-threat to…t-the r-royal Knights…s-soon to b-be…c-crushed to d-death…w-with a v-vengeance…u-u-upon…th-th-those…l-lowly f-fools…w-who p-p-p-rotect Hy-hy-hyrule…"**_

Colin's face turned stony, and he whirled towards Llyra with a hand over his mouth, looking as though he were about to puke. "Llyra!" he breathed. "D-did she just…say we…"

Llyra's eyes were fuller than bowls of turnip stew. Cherry was sputtering worse than her grandpa had after he'd hiked up death mountain with a Hero's Flag strapped to his back to prove he was still as agile as a goriya. Still, the words she was spewing sounded familiar. It was like…

"Colin…" she breathed, "…isn't she repeating our words from earlier? From our report?"

He gazed at Llyra as though her head had morphed into a hydromelon. "Have you got chu jelly in your ears?! I don't remember making any vengeful threats to the royal knights!" He shuddered like an ice talus had woken up next to him. "I'd sooner throw myself off the Great Plateau!"

"I mean a _heavily_ abridged version Colin," she droned, "minus a whole lot of _crucial_ wording inbetween. Listen carefully!" She cast him a dim glower. "Who was it who called us _'lowly fools'_ again?"

He sucked in a sharp breath, like he'd just realized he'd fed cat litter to his neighbor's dog.

Llyra leered at the suspended robot face, lolling to the side like a stal that hadn't realized it was still half connected to a neck. "Hey Cherry," she rasped, "you doing this on purpose? This your idea of vengeance against me for bashing in your head, you conspiring robot!"

Cherry's eyes spasmed and her mouth regurgitated a new round of flattering verbiage.

 _ **"…y-y-you…c-c-calamitous…m-m-mean s-s-spirited…insur-sur-surgents…v-viciously attacked…in…an-anger…an-and…de-de-destroyed all the kni-knights a-and obliterated-ated their weapon-on-onry…mess-essengers of dea-death from the under-der-derworld sent…o-o-on orders f-from Ganon-on…gonna nuke-uke the schoo-oo-ool…leading to…horr-orrible cata-ata-atastrophic destruc-uction and r-r-ruin…r-r-rallying…big…bad-ad-ad…horrib-ib-ible…criminals-als…thieves-es…a-a-and…troublemakers-ers-ers…."**_

Llyra glared intensely at the defamatory robot like she'd just initiated a duel atop Hyrule Castle. "Oh yeah, that all you got to say?!" She rumbled. "You think you can trash talk us without getting your own creepy claws shoved into your lying, scheming metal mouth—" She felt a cold hand clamp her shoulder. Behind her, Colin's face was wheeling through five shades of pale blue before an expression of half terror and half wrath enshrouded his features.

"L-Llyra…" he stammered between gasps, "…this is so-so-sooooo much worse than what happened in the Weapon Hall! E-even if we don't count how much this Sheikah tech probably costs…can you imagine what'll happen to us if _THIS_ is the report the Headmaster or the administration hears from her about what we did?" He inhaled, trembling like an earthquake were codifying in his body. "We'll get called in for interrogations…INTERROGATIONS, LLYRA!" He moaned and grasped at his convulsing head like a gibdo. "…under dim green lighting in a dank dungeon cell and…we'll…we'll be under suspicion of…" he gulped, like the thought was so horrid he couldn't even muster the courage to formulate the words, "…treason against the crown!"

Llyra's eye twitched, and she beat back the lump of snot rising in her throat. "No no, it'll be fine! We'll just go with Cherry and explain—"

"—explain how you _didn't_ smash her head in to stop her from warning anyone that we're here to NUKE the SCHOOL? Because that's how it'll look to them!"

"WHAT?!" Llyra squeezed her telescope. "Don't be stupid. They won't take it like _that!_ "

Colin shook his head as a grimace molded his mouth. " _Think_ about it, Llyra! Cherry's report makes what we did sound like an act of terrorism! And you busted her up, preventing her from speaking the truth on it. Just how suspicious do you think that makes you look?"

Llyra spun her telescope in her hands. "But that's not why I—"

"—they don't know that! It's gonna be our word versus Cherry's. Who're they gonna believe?"

"Us, of course! It's obvious her wording is all wrong because she's busted! They can't take the word of some glitchy robot over ours!"

Colin's eyes were wild. "But what if they DO?! Do you know what they could do to us?! Do you know?!" He smacked his cheeks and pulled at them like he were trying to pull his skin off. "Forget expulsion, they could lock us up in the castle dungeons…for life! With…with Like-Likes and…and REDEADS!"

She caught his spasming wrist and held it firm. "Would you calm down, Colin? That's not gonna happen. You're just being paranoid. The situation isn't _that_ bad."

 _ **"…shall…hang…th-the knights…b-b-by…their toes…t-t-o…watch…the de-demise of…their…precious Hyrule-ule…and…all…they…l-l-l-ove…m-m-m-must re-re-report to headm-m-m-master…C-c-c-colin…a-a-a-and…A-a-a-aryll…threat-eat-eaten…the Royal Knights…"**_

Llyra's hand twitched and she caught it with her other wrist to keep it still. Colin glowered. "You. Were. Saying?" He spoke through his teeth.

She unleashed her breath like exhaust out of a chimney. "Fine, it sounds bad! But so what? If we fix it, there's nothing to worry about right?" Her fingers massaged the telescope as her mind scrambled for a solution, until one of her signature genius ideas struck her eyes open, and her head swung up. "Hang on, I got this." She drew her telescope back, eyes trained on Cherry's lolling face. "Another blow to the head might undo it!"

Colin opened his mouth to retort. "What kind of logic is tha—"

WHAM.

He stared as the suspended bot face received another electrifying whack, jolting it to the opposite side of its nearly disembodied neck. His jaw jerked the same way as Cherry's head, to its other side.

"Weird," Llyra muttered, "that usually works on vending machines."

"Like hell it does!" Colin snatched the telescope out of her hands, compressing it shut with the finality one would have upon locking up a vault of powder kegs. "I've seen enough 'uses' out of this. It's going away before you smash any more heads off!"

"Hey!" Llyra's arm shot out to retrieve her stolen treasure at once, "—give it back!"

 _ **"C-c-c-c-aawwlin a-a-and O-o-orielle,"** _Cherry cut in, her voice skewing in an almost drunken, inconsistent pitch, _**"C-c-c-cawwwlin a-a-a-and O-o-rielle…g-g-gonna n-n-nuke the sc-c-c-hool, m-must re-report…"**_

"Yeah," Colin droned, "you fixed her right up, Llyra. Now our names are Cawlin and Orielle?" He dropped her telescope into his bag and zipped it shut, as if to say enough out of that.

Llyra grimaced. "Well…at least our names got distorted, so they won't think Cherry's talking about us…that's good right?"

He whipped his head around. "You think that's good!? What if there are actual students around here with those names?!"

She scoffed. "As if. Those don't even _sound_ like real names. It should be more than obvious now that the whole report is wrong."

"You're one to talk, what kind of name is _Aryll?"_

Llyra flinched at the sound of her name. "Okay first of all," she hissed, "I told you not to call me that! And second of all, I'll have you know I was named after a _spectacular_ flower, the Amaryllis?!"

"Oh, and what does that flower stand for, beheading robots with telescopes?"

She glowered. "Pride! It stands for pride!" her foot stomped the ground with the force of a Goron Pound. "It fits me to a T!"

Cherry was lolling about like a leever in the background as they squabbled until—almost as though Llyra's stomp had jogged some scrambled fraction of her memory—she rotated around and started chugging away down the hall. _ **"…m-m-must re-re-report…c-c-riminals…m-must find…h-headmaster…"**_ Llyra paled like a bright-eyed crab and tackled her with the zeal of a quarterback.

"Llyra!" Colin gasped as they toppled over like chess pieces.

"A little help, Colin!" Llyra was wrestling the discombobulated body like an agitated cat. "We can't let her take that whacked out report to the headmaster or anyone else!"

He groaned. "What else are we gonna do now?!"

"Would you just get over here?!"

He ran a hand over his eyes like he couldn't believe he was about to wrestle a busted robot in the middle of the hall before class. "Oh Nayru help me…" He slid the Link hat over his head as though it could somehow infuse him with the courage to tackle this strange ordeal before scurrying over. Llyra was crouched like a frog over the robot's rolling gizmos, so he ironed his hands over Cherry's shoulders on the other end of her, thankful the bot seemed too disoriented to remember she had a set of extra arms hidden like knives in her chest.

"…and how long," he heaved, "do we do this? I think my back is going to crack!"

"Hang on, I'm thinking" she mused.

"Why is it," he frowned as his fingers clung to the cold metal, "I get the feeling one of your award-winning bad ideas is coming?"

 _ **"…p-p-p-punish them…insur-ur-urgents…w-with…h-h-horrible…soup…"**_

Colin wailed. "You know what?" he gasped, "we are so-o-o lucky the school is empty right now and there's no one around to see this fiasco."

A voice suddenly floated into their ears from passed the glass banister off to the side, as though to make Colin bite his tongue.  
"Cherry? Cherry? Are you up there?!" It was a female voice, drifting up from the lower floor.

"Nice job Colin," Llyra rasped through gritted teeth, "you just _had_ to jinx us!"

He scowled. "Don't look at me, you're the mastermind in all this!"

"Wait one second," the voice warbled, "I'll be right up there!" They heard a door slam and the faint clatter of feet upon steps close-by.

Colin and Llyra exchanged the look of rising panic that two rabbits would have before the entrance of a hungry bear. Llyra leapt and curled her arms in a desperation around Cherry's rollers trying to haul her up. Colin grappled her by the shoulders, and together the two each held up one side of her like a hulking tarp they didn't have a clue what to do with.

"Maybe there's a courtyard with a pond nearby?" Llyra called helplessly.

"You want to dump her in the bottom of a pond?!" His head snapped at her like she'd asked to blow her nose on his autographed pictograph of Link. "That's an even _worse_ idea than I expected from you! We should be trying to get her _repaired,_ not permanently _disposed!_ Besides, we don't have time to go find a pond!"

The footsteps were amplifying. Llyra's alarmed vision darted around for the closest, easiest way to get Cherry out of sight, and her eyes landed on a door just a few paces from them, emblazoned with the crest of a golden toilet.

"That bathroom, Colin!" she jabbered, hobbling in that direction. "Let's just…toss her in there for now! Just temporarily."

"Your plan is to ditch her in the bathroom?!" His head shook in disbelief, though his feet still shuffled in that direction. "What kind of solution is that?!"

"You got a better idea?!" Llyra kicked the door open and together they hurled her in. They couldn't even see five feet inside with the lights off, but there wasn't much else they could do, even if there happened to be Flying Tiles and Fire Eyes lurking over the sink. "Besides," Llyra added as she dusted off her hands, "letting this crazy buster crawl around the hallways like this would scare the living hell out of someone! Students are coming soon, we're doing the school a favor by keeping this menace out of the halls!"

"Yeah," Colin muttered, "until they decide to use the bathroom."

"That's nothing an out-of-order sign on the door can't fix."

 _ **"…s-screw…that…d-dumb…p-prancing thief…in-in…the sc-school…"**_

Colin frowned, fidgeting with the tip of his hat. "The sign's not gonna do much if they can hear _that_ through the door." Llyra snatched the Link hat off his head and shoved it over Cherry's face so that her voice was muffled and her words were unintelligible.

"There," she stated.

"But the hat—!" Colin cried.

A door opened just around the corner and out rang the same female voice from earlier at a much louder pitch.  
"Cherry? Cherry!" The footsteps drew close. Llyra barely had time to shut the door and invent a casual pose when the girl came strolling from around the corner.

"Where are you, my techno-informed-lassie?" The intruder glided into view with a spring in her voice and a skip in her step. He roaming eyes alighted on the two meek students leaning casually against the bathroom door.  
"Why, hello there!" she sauntered over to them. "Have you guys seen Cherry? I've been looking for her, and I could've sworn I heard her voice coming from up here."

The two of them gave her large, wide, toothy grins. "….Nope, sorry can't help you!" Llyra's voice trilled at an unusually high pitch. "It's just…been us up here! Heheheh!"

The lass pursed her lip and advanced her nose into a twitchy-eyed Llyra, who held her grin up like a shield against this onslaught of curiosity. Her invader, Llyra observed, had chocolate brown hair pulled into a thick ponytail, caterpillar brows curving over almandine eyes, and a backpack that rose higher than her head. Said intruder tapped her chin, studying them both up and down like she were a critic inspecting sculptures at an art exhibit. The two examinees exchanged a nervous look.

"Hm…" the girl stood up, "…I don't think I've seen you two around before, and there isn't _anyone_ I don't know at this Academy. Which means you _must_ be freshmen. Shouldn't you two be at the assembly?"

Colin blinked beneath a face full of sweat. Llyra fiddled with her hair. "Shouldn't…you be at the assembly?" she bit back. Colin pinched his wrist to keep himself from smacking his forehead.

"Me?!" she laughed like she'd just been mistaken for a talking timber. "Do I look like a freshman to you?"

"Well," Llyra raised her hands to her hips in pseudo confidence. "No one would want to be here right now if they didn't have to be."

"Oh-ho, but you see…" the girl stroked her foggy glasses with a sparkle in her cheeks, "…a true news-reporter never sleeps!"

Llyra's smile twitched. Colin swallowed like he'd eaten a fly. _News…reporter?_

The girl cleared her throat, bowing before them like the hostess at a privileged event. "The name's Traysi, President of the Academy Newsletter, at your service!" She beamed down at her two new subjects of interest.

Beneath her rigid smile, Llyra swallowed hard. Self-proclaimed news reporters were practically the bane of her existence. They were among the most fearsome of the stalkers outside her house, and the times they'd forced themselves into her face with a mike too big for their heads, she'd spoken in dimply smiled naivety about her hobbies climbing trees to play with monkeys and swimming around the island for fun in search of the deity Jabun, only to hear whispers later about how she was an uncivilized feral rascal that scratched her butt like a smelly monkey swinging through trees and lurked about in the water like a shark, seeking Jabun in order to stab his eyes out as some sacrificial offering to some evil tribal god named Odolwa. She'd decreed that would never happen again.)

The offending news reporter withdrew a pen from behind her ear and began to pace to and fro. "I'm out here early sniffing for scoops. Gotta get a head start, you know? They're expecting a _fantabulous_ opening article for the year's kickoff and I aim to blow it out of the electric ball park! That's why I was looking for Cherry. She usually picks up a lot about what's going on around school." Her snoopy eyes slid back their way. "But since I can't find her, guess you two will have to do instead! So…" She snapped a notebook practically from thin air and fixed them with the expectant gaze of a waitress taking an order. "What are you two freshies doing out here skipping the assembly? Got any interesting scoops for me?" She beamed like she were expecting an extra scoop of frosting on her ice cream.

Llyra—as always at these crucial junctures—suddenly found her ever reliable tongue in bigger knots than her hair just after waking up. "…uh—"

"—we are not skipping!" Colin tore in with surprising gusto, like his pride had somehow been singed at her words. "Don't go confusing us with some student who'd lazily cut class to go fall asleep in a tree somewhere!"

Llyra's poker face nearly cracked into a laugh, but she settled for an awkward grin instead. Leave it to Colin to diffuse the tension.

"But, you're clearly _not_ at the assembly…" Traysi gestured the tip of the pen to his nose.

"We got lost on the way there," Llyra slid in a much more casual tone, "and that's all. This school is stupidly huge. How are we expected to find anything in it in the first place?"

Traysi drew her pen across her lips in a knowing grin, as though recalling when she was the new tyke on the block, young and wee as they. She chuckled. "Oh trust me, you'll get over _that_ feeling after the first week. And besides, it's pretty easy to navigate with a map. Didn't you see the _gargantuan_ stack of maps out in the lobby? They're kinda hard to miss."

"Oh, _were_ they?" Llyra quirked a brow as though she had no idea. "Well anyway, we _didn't_ have a map so we got lost, end of story." Colin was nodding his head beside her like his neck were broken. "It'd make for such a _boring_ article," Llyra added silently wishing for Colin not to look so much like a bobble head, "that readers would fall asleep and still be bored in their dreams! I'm sure that's not the kind of story you'd want." Llyra glanced over at Colin and gave him a look as stern as her grandma's when she was being warned not to surf using one of their new glass trays. Don't. Say. ANYTHING. Her eyes warned.

Traysi released a disheartened sigh, like she'd gone to Wheaton & Pita's only to find they were out of croissants. "Figures, it's too early to get a serious scoop out of anyone. Look's like I got up early for nothing." She tucked her notepad under her arm and fiddled with her cuffs. "So far I've only got a couple of interesting potential scoops. One I can't seem to get any details on, and the other is based solely on a rumor."

"Great!" Llyra piped like a student hearing their teacher had to leave early. "That means you've got something to chase, so why not go sniff it out?" _And leave us alone?_ She added in her head.

"I would…" Traysi mused, "…but there's no one around to ask, y'know? I was gonna ask around the freshmen class once they got out of the assembly…" her eyes flicked back towards Llyra and Colin. "…although, I suppose I can start with you two." She leaned in. "Tell me, you heard anything about a break-in to the school early this morning? I heard someone did a number on the security. Cameras are off, doors to the outside are inactive, and doors inside that should be locked are open…but I don't know any of the juicy deets."

Llyra pursed her lip and she heard Colin exhale beside her, as though he were glad to hear of some misdemeanor he had no part in. It seemed their delightful news reporter hadn't caught wind of the weapon hall—not yet at least.

"We haven't heard any more than you about it," Llyra droned.

Traysi pouted. "Aww poo. Well what about this then, you guys hear anything about Link's younger sister starting classes hear today?"

Colin and Llyra both sucked in a sharp breath—for completely different reasons.

"—waitwaitwait." Colin sprung on his feet like an armos statue startled awake. "Back up a second. Did you say…LINK has a younger sister?! AND—AND—she'scomingHERE?! As in joining the freshman class?!"

"That's the rumor!" Traysi twirled her pen with a beam, "Although I haven't been able to confirm it or anything. I'd ask that devil Link himself if he didn't make himself so gosh darn impossible to track down. Catching up to him is like trying to hookshot a guay!" She leaned her hip to one side. "I was thinking maybe I could interview her, you know? I'm sure the whole school is curious to know what Link's little sister is like."

Colin was hyperventilating like a child given a birthday cake twice the height of his face. "Yeah…no kidding, I mean being THE Link's younger sister and all!" His face had glazed over, his tone undulating with moony jubilance. "Which means she must be incredibly powerful, and beautiful, and completely incapable of making a single mistake…divine like a goddess!"

 _Colin,_ Llyra thought, seething right next to him. _Please oh please just shut up._ Colin had lost his ability to see sideways though, or even in front of him, with the sparkle that had overtaken his eye.

"Well, not necessarily," Traysi played absently with her cuffs. "She could turn out to be a real bore fest you know. It's not like being related to a phenomenon guarantees you'll be anything like one yourself. If she turns out to be a real disappointment, I'm afraid it could be a waste to interview her—"

"—OR MAYBE." Llyra's voice sliced in ten times deeper and more menacing than usual, as though she'd suddenly been possessed by a monster, and the two in immediate range flinched back at her tone. Her awkward grin had turned into a zombie snarl with the corners of her mouth pinned upwards against their will. Colin stared at the streaks of sinister blue he could swear were crawling down her forehead.

"…are, you okay?" he whispered.

"…MAYBE." Her voice rasped. "She is just so, SO magnificent that it's beyond the abilities of your puny brains to comprehend." Her eyes flickered open in challenge. "Ever think of that, huh?!"

They stared at her in silence. Her zombie smile twitched uncomfortably, and her foot tapped the floor to offset the awkwardness. _A distraction would be perfect right about now…_ a voice whispered in her head.

Her prayers were answered in the form of a perfect distraction that came from the door at her back.

Thump. Boom. Crash. _**"Bssklfd…weofsjew…dsfewf…"**_ A faint, unintelligible voice blared from inside the bathroom, accompanied by a shower of racket. Llyra and Colin swapped glances.

"Woah," Traysi breathed. "What is happening in _there?!"_

Colin and Llyra both stepped in front, their teeth widened into matching crescent moons. "Sounds to me like someone's having a bad morning." Llyra's voice mimicked the pleasant professionalism she'd heard earlier in Cherry's voice. "I get mornings like that too sometimes, don't you? We should be sensitive and give whoever's in there some privacy. Plus it probably smells _awful_ in there."

"…but," Traysi twirled the pen absentmindedly in her hands, "…that's Lady Impa's private restroom."

Llyra clenched her teeth. "…private…"

Colin groaned. "…restroom?"

They traded renewed glances of horror.

Traysi tapped her chin with her pen. "Yeah, don't you know where we are?" She shook her head. "Wait…you _don't,_ huh?"

They shook their heads in synchronized dread.

She gestured her pen over her shoulder to the square banister at her back. "This is the faculty quad up here." Then she pointed to the dragon fountain adjacent to the open square. "You seen Naydra?"

"…yes." Llyra drawled with a twitching brow.

"Word of advice since you're freshmen," her eye twinkled with a speck of lark as her mouth melded into a grin, " _Don't_ try to grab Nayru's Pearl out of its mouth, even if you're dared. It's a common freshmen prank."

Colin chuckled almost imperceptibly. Llyra pinched his arm.

"Anyway," Traysi crossed her arms, "that trap dragon is an easy landmark to remember this area by. All these doors here around the quad lead to faculty offices and private restrooms, though right now it's empty since all the primary staff is at the assembly." She pressed a fist to her chin. "Speaking of, Lady Impa should be at the assembly too." She frowned as another buzz and crash drifted out of the bathroom while Llyra and Colin both winced.

"Oh, uh, yeah I'm sure she _would_ be," Llyra hummed, "if she hadn't caught a bad case of…" her eyes stole over to the dragon statue, as though pleading for Naydra to impart some wise inspiration into her tense throat,"…Dracorum…Laryngitis."

Colin shot Llyra a look. _Dracorum Laryngitis?_ Llyra returned his look with a silent plea. Just go with it for now!

"It's been going around you know," she continued in the expert tone of a lemonade seller talking up a potential client. "I caught a glimpse of how bad it was earlier when she dashed passed me to hole up in there. You wouldn't want to risk catching that by storming in there recklessly…probably best to keep some distance."

"Dracorum Laryngitis?" Traysi twirled her pen, mulling over the prestigious name. Then a look of recognition dawned in her eye. "Wait! I think I've heard of that!"

"…you have?" Colin sounded as deadpan as Llyra had after her grandma had given her invisible clothes once for her birthday.

"You have?!" Llyra tuned. "I mean…of course you have!"

"Yeah!" Traysi flicked her snoopy pen into Llyra's face. "Isn't it that nasty but mysterious flu with slightly different symptoms from person to person where your voice can sound completely different to ten different people at once because it impairs all your senses, and it's thought to be transmitted through eye contact though that's unconfirmed, and you spit out hairballs, toads and dragon eggs every few hours, with no known cure?"

"Uuhhh…yes?" Llyra grinned.

"I knew it!" she whipped out her notepad and scribbled in fervor. "What a scoop! Dracorum Laryngitis is going around and poor Lady Impa has been caught in its grips! This could be the start of a great article!"

Llyra craned her head to meet Colin's glowering eye. _She's. Writing. It. DOWN._ His eyes warned.

Llyra grimaced. What was she supposed to do, knock the nosy reporter out? She'd already tried that angle with Cherry, and look where that had gotten them! She raised her flickering eye to the girl busy scrawling away, fixing her with a toothy smile. "Uhhh…Traysi, was it? This Academy newsletter… does… _everyone_ in school read it?"

Traysi beamed like a proud parent flaunting their child's prized silk ribbons won from a spelling bee. "You bet your Hylian ears they do! Why, last year my article on how often students hide rupees in jars was such a big hit, everyone went around breaking every jar in the school to see what they could find! It became such a problem that students started tripping over jar remains in the halls, and then it became a running joke to use broken jars as trippers in duels…they'd go around boasting about who got tripped up the most in the bathrooms, after school, during lunch, between matches for weeks on end! Isn't that great?"

"Fantastic," Llyra drawled. Colin's lecturing eye was drilling into her blistering cheek from the side.

"And now," Traysi rolled up her sleeves stepping towards the door. "It's time to do my part rolling in the mud, and catch the deets up close!" she sighed like she were sacrificing a prized horse as her hungry fingers reached for the knob. "The things I do for my scoops, right?"

"Wait!" Llyra and Colin hissed at once, standing ground before the door like the final defense before an invasion. "T-this is a private restroom," Llyra carped. "Meaning off limits to students, right? Don't you think you'll get in trouble if you go in?"

Traysi leaned back, as though taken in by her point. "Come to think of it…" she tapped the pen to her chin. "That's no laughing matter. It'd be pretty dumb to risk getting in trouble with Lady _Impa_ of all people after all. That woman can shoot fireballs from her eyes, I'm certain of it! Last year, she seized a whole gang of students by their collars and hurled them through one of the gym walls for being tardy to an exam, and then she failed them on the spot! Ooh, and there was that time a couple of students borrowed one of her swords to use in a duel without asking…she forced them to spend the whole day with the sword duct taped to each of their arms, y'know like what they do in three-legged races except with arms and a giant sword sandwiched inbetween? They nearly sliced every desk they sat on in half and had to pay for those damages too…oh and that was the reduced punishment she gave after they apologized! No way I'd want to get on her bad side." She shuddered. Colin was biting his nails again, stealing glances at the bathroom door. Llyra could tell his stomach was as knotted as hers, listening to the unintelligible sounds still coming from Impa's private restroom, which did not bode well for the state of the room. "…not to mention," Traysi was still babbling on, "that Dracorum Laryngitis has probably got her in a _terrible_ mood. I'll have to stalk her from a safe distance later to get my scoop." She graced the silent freshmen with a cheery grin. "Hey, thanks for the scoop you two!"

The two of them held their grins up like drooping signs they'd been holding for an hour, excreting a nervous laugh as the beaming reporter finally turned away. She advanced a step before stopping short and turning back to them as though she'd forgotten something.

"Oh hey, by the way, I didn't catch your names! Care to fill me in?"

A shadow fell across Llyra's face as she gazed up at Traysi's inquisitive nose. Her gut was screaming that letting even her alias slip out was a bad idea at this juncture, (and she usually listened to her intuition, even though at times it got her arm stuck in a dragon's mouth) and this time, the hairs on her arm stood on end to signal that her instincts were on overdrive. If she gave this nosy newsreporter so much as a morsel to feed on, it would definitely come back to haunt her. Giving away her name? Not gonna happen.

"Oh we're—" Colin started.

"—Cawlin and Orielle!" Llyra finished. Colin cast her another incredulous look in his recent series of them.

"Cawlin and Orielle?" Traysi twirled the pen. "Weird, I know some peeps at this school with those _same_ names."

"Oh, _do_ you?" Colin was glowering at Llyra again. _What I tell you about those names?_ His eyes scorned.

"Sure do!" Traysi grinned. "I should introduce you two to them later. Or…maybe just Orielle, since the Cawlin I know isn't too friendly."

"That sounds great," Colin piped in before Llyra could utter another damaging word, and she scowled as he gripped her arm signaling her to keep quiet. "Well if you'll excuse us," he tugged on Llyra's arm, shuffling them a step to the side, "we really need to get going…"

"Oh…hey!" Traysi interjected, dismounting her rather large backpack (probably jammed with nosy sleuthing equipment like stalker case files, Llyra figured). "You two said you were lost, right? Well…here! I'm sure you could use this, I certainly don't need it." She reached into one of the front pockets and withdrew a slip of paper, dropping it into Colin's open palm. Llyra and Colin leaned in to see what it was.

Lo and behind! It was a school map—in plain old Hylian too.

Traysi beamed, slipping her oversized pack back on like a turtle shell. "I picked up a spare on the way in, not sure why. They were kinda just sitting there, begging to be taken, you know? But hey, good thing I did, right? Now you two have a map!"

"Yeah…thanks." Llyra piped, not half as enthusiastic as she sounded. This would have been awesome to get…like an hour ago.

"The assembly's right here…" she pointed to where AUDITORIUM C was inscribed in heavy red lettering. "And we're here," her finger slid about a couple of inches over to a teensy square. "It's about a ten minute walk from here I'd say." Then she frowned. "Although I'm not sure there's really still a point in going now. It's already half over."

"Yeah well," Colin's fingers massaged his neck as though to relieve an itch. "You wouldn't happen to know what we're missing over there, would you?"

"Are you kidding?" Traysi cackled like he'd just cracked an old joke she hadn't heard since being a ten year old at her first sleepover. "I remember when I had mine freshman year, it was so boring I could barely pay attention without lolling off! And then I started taking notes on what people were doing, like Headmaster Rhoam's beard kept bopping up and down every time he said the word 'INTEGRITY!' And Lady Syrup's left eyeball kept rolling around like a loose wheel, and Lady Impa glared at anyone who sneezed, and Lady Purah was…was…" Traysi frowned. "…what _was_ she doing?"

"So then…" Colin interrupted with a frown. "…you _don't_ actually know what we're missing at the assembly."

"Please," Traysi scoffed, "They hold the same boring assembly every year. Headmaster Rhoam does his welcome speech about what it takes to be a knight, talking about basic virtues such as honesty, integrity, wisdom, compassion, courage…" Llyra could feel Colin's glower scalding the unfortunate side of her face exposed to his tart aura—it was like Traysi's words were spewing out of an identical lecture in Colin's eyes. _Sorry,_ she communicated with a pursed lip.

"….you know," Traysi blathered. "All those basic tenets of being a knight. As long as you've got that down, you're fine!"

"Uh-huh," Colin crossed his arms.

"Absolutely." Llyra mirrored his crossed arms.

Traysi beamed. "Anyway, nice meeting you two freshies, hope you have a delightful first day here!" she tucked her notebook away. "I know it can be a little overwhelming, but try not to let it get to you!"

"Oh, you have no idea." Colin muttered, glancing at Llyra. She bit her lip.

Traysi nodded with about as much focus as someone listening to a preacher of _The Book of Koridai_ on the street. "Uh-huh…hey well, gotta move. Let's run into each other again soon, alright?"

Llyra's lips stretched into a grin like an overused rubber band due for a snap. _Let's not!_ She thought.

The newsreporter finally sheathed her fearsome pen and slipped it back behind her ear before shuffling off. "Ciao peeps!" She bounded around the corner, and they were treated to the sound of her receding steps moving down the stairs to the oblivion whence she came.

Ten seconds after the sound had faded out, Llyra and Colin both released a colossal sigh, like they'd been holding it in since the turn of the century.

Colin turned immediately on Llyra with a lectures worth of scorn in his eyes. _"Dracorum Laryngitis?"_ he drawled.

She scowled, fiddling with a tuft of hair. "Hey, I did us a favor compared to what could've happened! If that reporter had found Cherry, can you imagine the crock that would've been spreading about us in the school paper? If you thought being called a messenger of death out to nuke the school was bad, I reckon that smarmy reporter would make Cherry's wording sound lightweight compared to her dramatic spin on it!"

Colin glowered. "Right, but reporting on the spread of a fictional disease, that's totally fine."

Llyra pouted. "Hey, _she_ said it was a real thing!"

His brow creased. "…I'm not so sure I'd take _her_ word for it. But either way, you got lucky Llyra, _real_ lucky." His fingers stroked at the folds in his forehead. "For a reporter, she wasn't too perceptive, was she?"

Llyra gave an intense sigh, like she'd barely avoided being run over by one of those newfangled trains. "Thank Farore for that. It was a close call, but I'm glad we made it out."

Colin scowled. "We're not out of anything! It's only a matter of time before they find Cherry all busted up in there, and it gets reported on anyway." He gestured to the bathroom, which had gone quiet.

Too quiet.

The silence resounded like an alarm in their heads, and the two exchanged a look of mounting panic.

"…we open the door on three?" Llyra breathed.

Colin gulped. "…do we have to?"

Llyra's hand latched the knob. "One."

He whined. "…please let it not look like a dodongo puked in there…"

"Two."

"…if I get a sword duct taped to my arm, I'll end up slicing my head off when I scratch my neck…"

Llyra twisted the knob and banged the door open like a castle guard ready to arrest some high profile burglar from the Dark World. "Three!"

Colin's fumbling fingers found the switch on the inside of the door, and he squeezed his eye shut as he flicked it on, only to fling them back open at Llyra's immediate shriek. The two of them took in the state of the room with hearts thumping like megaton hammers.

"Don't worry Colin," breathed Llyra, "it doesn't look like a dodongo puked in here…" she turned her wide eyes on him. "…it looks WORSE."

The restroom, or rather, messed-room, looked as though its walls had been trampled by a lawnmower installed with spinning blades of doom attached to spray guns of jello. (Llyra briefly had a horrific image of Cherry flexing chainsaws and drills twined with giant tubes of toothpaste out of her torso in an attempt to redecorate the walls.) It looked almost as bad as her kitchen ceiling did after the time she'd stuffed a voltfruit inside a hydromelon inside a Lynel head inside a flaming cooking pot (don't ask—it was Joel's idea). There were metal springs, screws, and shafts caked in a strange blue slime on the floor, slits, scars and fissures in the walls, the toilet—gold plated and fit for royalty save for the recent round of scrapes, the ornate mirrors scuffed and jellied above what likely used to be spotless polished sinks, all as though the designer had suddenly changed the overall look midway from too-expensive-to-breath-in to too-nauseous-to-pee-in.

Colin's face looked as bad as the state of room. He slumped against the wall with a cloud of gloom practically seeping out the top of his head. "This is it Llyra…" he moaned, "when Lady Impa catches sight of her private restroom looking like this…" he gulped. "…our insides will probably be the final touch to this slimy parade."

Llyra's eyes foraged the wreck as though troubled by something else, or rather, the lack of something else. "Colin…" she jerked her head about the wasted room frenzied as a madderpillar. "…where's Cherry?"

"Who knows!" he whined. "She probably combusted! It'd explain the state of the room!"

Llyra frowned, stepping over the bits of broken shafts and springs lathered in slime. Cherry may have had a lot of strange and mysterious abilities, but she'd bet her telescope that teleportation wasn't one of them. Her eye caught sight of a fan in the wall, and she leaned down and stuck her eye to it. "You don't think she went down the air duct?"

Colin raised a dejected eye to the duct and scoffed. "Llyra, she couldn't fit anything more than a foot or a hand in that!"

Llyra tapped her finger against the duct to see if it was loose. "But she's Ancient Sheikah Tech, isn't she? What if she can disembody herself into parts and they went down the duct and then she reassembled herself on the other end? Or maybe she's even got some crazy ability to shrink herself down! Who knows what ancient Sheikah tech can do after all!"

Colin released a drawn out sigh at her back. "What difference does it make? There's not much we can do either way."

Llyra frowned, craning her neck around to behold the storm cloud haloing her companion's head. "Hey Colin, only one of us can be the cynic here, and it isn't you! Where's your optimism at?!"

His brow furrowed. "It got whacked by a telescope…twice. And then it combusted all over a private faculty restroom."

Llyra scowled. Her feet erected themselves, and she let them stomp their way over to his bubble of gloom, where she stood over him with her hands on her hips. "Hey mister end-of-the-world…" she leaned over him, "May I remind you that _I'm_ the one in the deeper grade of hot water here?" She wiggled a finger at his nose. "Wash that sorry expression off your face, you look like you just lost your horse to a guardian beam!"

He gazed up at her like a fatigued puppy. "…and how, oh Llyra the Legendary, am I supposed to do that?"

She pointed to the sink like a teacher sending a naughty student to the headmaster's office. "There's a sink right over there. Go wash your face, literally."

"But the sink looks like it's filled with Ganon's vomit!"

"Wash, Colin!"

He gave a prolonged exhale, as though to discharge a year's worth of ship exhaust from his mouth, and then he drew himself up and traipsed towards the sink. Llyra watched him slosh through the gunk on the floor, tripping over random springs along the way. She frowned, thinking it almost strange she hadn't fallen into a similar mood herself. It wasn't as though her legendary brain had cooked up some eye-popping plan to reverse everything that'd gone wrong after all, but neither was she ready to toss in the towel. Ironically, with the increasing string of catastrophes shadowing her this morning as though someone were out to get her, she was getting _more_ fired up. If this was fate's way of picking a fight with her, then she most certainly was gonna give someone a fight.

Said fight started with tracking down a certain mysterious and elusive robot. What could Cherry's broken head have been thinking? Maybe it was leering at them from somewhere in the restroom, playing a game of hide and seek. Llyra screwed up her eyes, scanning Cherry's tasteful refurbishing of the room again at a squint, and her eye caught wind of the battered golden toilet, sitting innocently at the base of the opposite wall with the lid down. Her brow creased. Experience told her, the least likely places were always the best hiding spots. She'd learned this after finding Joel hiding in a dumpster one time…

Her thoughts were interrupted by a scream at her back. "AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" Colin screeched.

"What?!" Llyra gasped, whirling around. "You found Cherry?!"

"No…" his voice quivered, "but I found…something!" He stood frozen as a deadrock, eying something hidden in the corner behind the wide sink. Llyra stepped cautiously over the doohickeys to see what it was, and her brows hiked up as they caught sight of a floor length mirror with a unique feature; it was broken from the center outwards, revealing a deep black hole like a huge ink splotch over a white page. It was large enough, she noted, to fit a person…or a robot.

"Hey Colin…" she whispered, "…could this be a…?" She stretched her hand tentatively into the blackness—it slipped right through as though nothing were there. A shock of excitement bristled up her arm, and she whirled towards Colin with flushed cheeks. "…it is! Colin…do you realize what this is?!"

His brow creased. "Um, a smashed mirror that's going to bring us even _more_ bad luck for the next seven years?"

Llyra rolled her eyes. _"Behind_ the mirror, Colin!" She beamed into the hole as though it smelt of candy. "This…is a secret passageway!"

Colin gulped, peering into the darkness as though trying to gauge an invisible enemy. "…oh…you think? (Because I was kinda hoping it was just an unusually black spot on the wall…)"

Llyra's lips suddenly tugged into a frown. "Ugh, that liar!" she hissed. "That robo-girl said she had no information on the Academy's secret passageways!"

"Technically…" Colin mumbled, "…she said no _shareable_ information. Key distinction."

Llyra scowled. "Well at least we know how she hightailed it out of here." She lifted her foot to pierce the darkness, but was stopped by Colin's reproachful voice.

"Woah woah waoh." He jabbered, "What do you think you're doing?"

She raised a brow. "Uh…going after her? Duh?"

He leaned in, a long shadow plaguing his nose. "You can't be serious?! It's pitch black in there!"

Her eyes fixed on his with a sudden glint of dare. "Are you _scared?"_

"Scared?!" He sandwiched his face between his hands and squeezed them like trap walls closing in on a room. "I'm terrified! And you should be too!"

She scoffed, delivering her foot through the inky gap. As soon as her sandal planted on the cold floor, a wall sconce ignited across from her eye with a FWOOSH. To her left and right, identical sconces flared to life as though awakened by the intrusion of her foot. One after another, they kindled in a rippling wave that lead interminably in both directions out of sight. FWOOSH. FWOOSH. FWOOSH. FWOOSH. FWOOSH. A grin unfurled across Llyra's face with the flaring of each light, and her eyes whirled toward Colin. His pupils widened on her as they read her thoughts.

"Ohhh no. No. No. We are not going down that path."

Llyra's eyes rolled passed the slime on the ceiling. "Maybe _you're_ not. But _I_ am." She hopped through the mirror with a thrill in her cheeks as though she'd found the secret waterfall into Zora's domain, proceeding down the hall with a lithe bounce.

"Llyra!" Colin hissed behind her, his head stuck through the hole like a scrub burrowing out of the ground. "Get back over here!"

"Hey, check this out Colin!" Llyra beckoned to him a distance down the aisle, peering into a mirror identical to the one she'd sprung through. Her backlit reflection mimicked her grin. "There are more mirrors along this corridor!" She pressed her hands against those of her mirror self. "You think they operate as doors somehow?"

"No, I _think_ you should get back here right now, before something even _more_ dreadful happens and we're led to meet some terrible fate!"

Llyra and her twin shook their heads at him in unison. "You say that like I'm not doomed to a terrible fate on a regular basis. What...you think we'll meet our demise in here or something?"

Colin's eyes darted about like mulldozers as his foot traipsed into the passage. "Yes, that's _exactly_ what I'm thinking! Either we'll die or get cursed...I mean, have you ever heard the story of…" He stole in close to her, teeth massaging hysterically at his nails. "…the legion of cursed pumpkin heads?"

She scowled, receding from his eyes to meet an identical pair in the mirror. "…who cares about some dumb story?"

His arm clutched her shoulder like it were the railing in a pool too deep for his feet. "Y-you know the stories of how going into the Lost Woods turns you into a stalfos…"

"Uh-huh," Llyra droned.

"W-well, they say…" His eyes scampered passed the candelabras on the wall, drawing like magnets towards the lingering darkness ahead. "…there are dungeon corridors just like this one, extending in endless directions. One wrong turn and you could be trapped in these halls till you die, and then…"

"…and then?"

"…before long, your head turns into a…pumpkin!"

"Oh, is that all?"

"…and you're forever cursed to join the…the LEGION OF PUMPKIN HEADS!"

Llyra's eyes ticked up like the hands on a clock. "Colin, that's just—"

"—I'm not done!" he hissed. She lifted a brow and leaned back against the mirror, as though to give him enough room to spread his spooky keese wings in this hyperbolic charade. If she had a lantern, she'd hook it to his chin for maximum dramatic effect.

"…they also say," he whispered, "…that the passageways lead into dungeons where if you take one wrong turn, you'll fall straight down a black hole into the underworld where you'll be trapped for all eternity…"

Llyra scowled. "Oh and who told you that story…Talo?"

"That's besides the point!"

She scoffed, dumping this enlightening story out one ear and proceeding to charge off ahead.

"Llyra!" He stomped after her and caught her wrist. "That's far enough! We're going back. We have no idea where this passageway leads, or what's lurking in here!"

"You go back Colin!" She spat, trying to break from his wrist. "You don't have to come if you're too scared. I'm going after Cherry."

"Llyra, I know you wanna fix Cherry, but what're you even gonna do if we find her?! She's beyond repair! If we recklessly wander around in here, we could fall into some serious danger!"

Her eyes swiveled on his, blazing like the torches on the wall at his back. "I don't know about you, but I'm planning on becoming a legendary knight Colin, I'm not scared of a little _danger_."

His eyes flashed back. "Courage and recklessness aren't the same thing."

"Would you just let go?!"

"No!"

"Colin!"

Their glares clashed with equal intensity, until Llyra flicked her eyes away to glower at the hall ahead. If Colin wanted to go be sulk buddies with rage-faced Naydra outside, he was free to do it, but getting in her way was a different story. Her eyes flickered as she was struck by one of her genius ideas, and her mouth drew into a grin.

"Hey!" she chirped, nudging her escort. "Was that _Link_ over there just now?"

"LINK?!" Colin's head spun like beamos locking on a target. "WHERE?!"

"Oh," she raised a casual finger, "I think that could've been him turning the corner up ahead just now—" In a split second, Colin had disconnected from her wrist and was skedaddling like a hightail lizard around the corner out of sight.

Llyra would've plopped down on the floor right there and laughed for a good half hour had she the time—but she didn't. She sent one last furtive glance Colin's way before pivoting on her heel and powering in the opposite direction. If she was quick, by the time Colin noticed he'd been sent on a wild goose chase, she'd be long out of sight…

This thought was interrupted by a shriek at her back, and before she could reflexively twist her head, Colin had jetted past her at double the speed, screaming as though his hair were aflame. Before her mouth could split open to question his novel flight pattern zigzagging down the hall, he slipped and tumbled head first into a roll, scrambling halfway back up only to plunge forward again like a snowball down a hill. His hands flailed like dexihands grasping at anything in the air as he stumbled, until finally they caught on a low-hanging lamp from the ceiling.

"COLIN!" Llyra crashed right into him as he seized the lamp. "WHAT THE UNHOLY HYLIA DO YOU THINK YOU'RE—"

Click.

The lamp yanked down with their colliding weight, and they both felt themselves sink as the floor opened beneath their feet. A shriek burst from both their throats as Colin's fingers slipped off the lamp, and they were abandoned to the mercy of some unknown abyss.

For a persistent moment, they harmonized in a blind scream—until they tumbled into a giant heap of dirt, equipped with the comforts of a steaming pile of refuse left by a herd of elephants, with the added embellishments of skulls and bones.

Colin was trembling beneath Llyra like they'd sunken into a lanmola sand pit.

Llyra whipped her head at him. "WHAT is your problem Colin? Would you knock it off?!"

He was shivering like a Goron in winter, clutching his head down like he were afraid it'd pop off if he let go. "I…I saw it Llyra…I saw…it…"

"You saw WHAT?! Your shadow?!"

He lifted his head in a daze, his eyes spooked. "W-we've fallen into the underworld Llyra, the underworld! WE'RE DOOOOOOMED!"

Llyra groaned at this illuminating declaration. "This isn't the underworld Colin, it's just the bottom of a shaft!"

Her legs erected themselves as though to rise above Colin's mumbo-jumbo, and she dust herself off before orbiting around.

She stopped.

Three inches from her nose was the glowing, grinning face of a pumpkin.

o | O | o

* * *

 **NEXT ::** Chapter 06—The Pumpkin, The Ghini, and The Witch (Part I/II)

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

Ideally I prefer to avoid chapters this long and normally I'd split one of this length in two, but there's a pace to this chapter that I felt would've been ruined if I'd done that. The first 1/3rd of it cruises at a casual pace only to setup for the sudden gear shift into the rest of the chapter, which is built up on that first part. A cut in the middle of the momentum just didn't make sense to me.

I should mention, the section where they're reporting to Cherry is a bit longer than I wanted it to be, but I couldn't condense it anymore without affecting Cherry's abridged wording later in the chapter. Making Cherry's words match up perfectly like that with their report was a huge challenge.

(On a side note: This is an example of where font shifts would've gone a long way. I'd prefer to use a font shift for when Cherry talks, but made do with bold/italics instead.)

Anyway, the compounding chaos that's beginning to spiral out of control in this chapter is closer to what I had in mind when I first thought of this story. i.e. Layer 1, Weapon Hall mess + Layer 2, Cherry gets busted + Layer 3, Incriminating report + Layer 4, wrong people thrown under suspicion + Layer 5, false rumor on an epidemic starts + Layer 6, vandalization of private faculty restroom…etc. it goes on. As you can probably guess, there are a lot of seeds being sown in this chapter that'll bare their fruit later.

Next chapter is halloween themed. I know it's far too late for halloween, but I hope that won't affect the enjoyment of reading it (besides, I listen to halloween songs all year round actually, haha). Chapter 6 is giving me some issues I need to wrestle through though, so I'm not sure when it'll be done, but hopefully soon.

As usual, comments welcome!

/~/ Farosie


	6. The Pumpkin The Ghini & The Witch (I)

_*Note from author: I thought for sure that last chapter would be the longest, I turned out to be wrong. So...make this one a new years special. I swear this length is not going to be the norm._

 _._

 **Ch 06—The Pumpkin, The Ghini, and The Witch (Part I/II)**  
 **-:-:-{** Vol 01— The Knightly Way Thoust Finds an Assembly **}-:-:-**

 _—/_ _******* Extended Flashback Special Chapter ******* _/—

* * *

On Halloween night at the tender age of seven, Aryll stepped out of the bathroom after brushing her teeth to find a vampire and his congregation of the undead lurking just outside the door. She'd barely unlatched the knob before coming face to face with the most terrifying pair of roasted yellow eyeballs set into the most horrifying heart shaped face—a mad swirl of toxic purple and bloody red—with spikes protruding like fangs out the sides. This was all it took for her seven year old self to let out an ear splitting scream that cracked every window in the house—and the ones that didn't crack were surely broken after that by the cackling that came from the monsters themselves.

In the middle of Aryll's scream, a hand reached up and slid the mask off, revealing her brother's laughing face. She didn't know what the unholy Hylia that mask was, but she could see her brother's fake fangs (or were they real?) glistening white as he laughed, and a black velvet cape draping slickly off his shoulders, with a whole party of cloaked beasts at his back. They removed their masks along with his in what became a sea of laughing faces.

Aryll could only stumble backwards in a wide-eyed daze, blinking up half in humiliation, half in fright. Above her, ten year old Link stood at half a foot taller than herself, imposing as a clocktower. At his heels, an army of boy scouts flanked in an array of colored robes and vivid masks, employed for their expertise at hanging off his every word (her brother had every boy scout trophy imaginable to show for his monopoly over their reverence—even ones invented solely for him, like ' _most likely to survive skydiving sans harness or sailcloth'_ ).

"You're _so_ easy to scare, Ary," the ringleader of his haunting troupe snorted, "It never gets old."

Aryll rose in a pout off the grimy floor dusting the crud from her butt, ignoring the round of snickers echoing through the peanut gallery. Big brother's teasing wasn't anything she wasn't used to after all. His crowd of stooges wasn't anything new either—there was always a gang of funny-looking toadies at his back. "…yoo guyes are going out terick or tereating?" Her voice was a soft coo, and her dainty fingers wrapped themselves around one of her blonde pigtails.

Her brother's eyes narrowed, and his lips formed a smile beneath the shadow sheathing half his features. "Oh… _that's right._ We're going…trick-or- _treating_." He chuckled, and the group at his back echoed the sound. Aryll, little as she was, still glimpsed their smirks and caught the inside joke being traded across glances. She spied the sharp gleam of a dagger peeking out of her brother's sleeve.

She knew what that meant.

Aryll sucked in a deep, _deep_ breath, like she were about to blow down the house, and screamed. "GARANDEMAAAAAA! BIG BEROTHAR AND HIS FRIENDS ARE SNEAKING INTO THAT SAVAGE LABARININTH AGAI—" Link clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Shhhh! Ary!" his eyes flashed at her.

"What was that, Ary, dear?" Her grandma singsonged as her bulbous, marshmallow self tottered into the room. "I couldn't quite hear you over the Oocca trick-or-treaters at the door."

Link swiveled towards her with the smile of a poster child selling freezard-fresh breath mints. "Hi grandma!" he chirped. "Need me to do anything for you before we head out?" The other boys copied his example, gazing up at grandma like a huddle of happy little bug-eyed mice.

Grandma's carefree smile crinkled her cheeks. "Oh Link, dearest, you sweety you. Go on and have fun now. Your little old grandma will be happy knowing you have a fine Halloween this evening."

The glint of a dim candle flickered in his eye. "Oh don't you worry…we will."

"BUT GARANDEMA—" Aryll tried to cut in, only to have Link talk over her.

"—Grandma, I left you a fairy in a bottle in your room. It should help you sleep really well tonight. Did you see it?"

Grandma sighed as though his words alone were enough to tuck her in. "Oh really Link? You did that for me, child?"

He beamed at her, his face the spitting image of a portrait drawn by angels. "Anything for you, grandma."

"Bless you sweetie!" she'd sing, kissing his saintly forehead. "Oh, that's right! There's something I wanna give you boys before you leave. Wait one moment." She scurried out of the room, humming the tune of a jolly chirri.

Aryll whirled on her brother leaning in his ever casual grace against the staircase rails, hands looped around the wooden bars as though he owned them. His eyes flicked to hers with a triumphant smirk.

She glowered. "I am SO telling garandema on yoo."

"I'll tell grandma you broke her favorite Bone-China vase."

"YOO broke that vase big berothar!"

"Yeah…but _she_ doesn't know that." He leaned over her, fingers pulling at some stray hairs dangling beside her pointy little ears. "After all, which of us is the clumsy one in the house, hmm?"

She pouted. "I might be clumsey, but at least I'm not stoopid! It's way too dangerous to go to that pelace!"

A round of laughter echoed out from the monsters at his back. He cocked a brow. "…I think you mean too dangerous for…" he twirled a finger below her eyes and pressed it into the tip of her nose "… _you_ , Ary. Just you. _Not_ us." His index twisted itself around one of her pigtails.

"W-w-w-what?" Her eyes widened like a doe's in lights, and she was suddenly conscious—and almost _ashamed_ —that she didn't have knives strapped to her ankles and stashed in her sleeves. "What'do yoo mean just me?"

Link drummed his fingers on the rails. They all gazed at her in silence.

"…boys!" grandma interrupted, toddling back into the room armed with a heap of pumpkin-shaped buckets. They dangled from her limbs as though she were costumed in an original fashion of bright orange wings. "…I've got plenty of pumpkin buckets for your candy adventuring!" she waved her arms so the smiling pumpkins swayed in delayed unison, as though nodding to her words. "They're painted with luminous paint, so they even glow in the dark! Beedle's had them on sale, so I was able to get a whole carton of them!"

The boys resumed smiling up at her like good little pups, mimicking their leader. "Thanks grandma!" Link's voice chimed, then he swiveled to his boys and dropped a command twice as low in pitch. "Hey, everyone thank her and take one."

They wasted nary a second to chorus in disciplined unison, "Thank you!" before at once lining up to obtain a glowing bucket they were sure to toss into the nearest dumpster on the first block out.

Aryll slumped down into their inflatable Zol chair with a pout, and a lump lolled in her throat as every pair of feet participated in this charade except her own. All of a sudden, staying up until ten o'clock to paint the mean face of the gravekeeper on a pumpkin didn't sound fun anymore. All of a sudden, that was for five year olds. Cool, mature ten year olds, they crashed through windows and played kickball with monster heads in deep dank caves. The pumpkin heads grinned at her from the arms of each monster child that scurried passed, and her fingers tingled with the compulsion all of a sudden to grab one for herself.

Link's eye slid to hers. "Don't worry Ary," he stroked the golden sideburns framing his face, "I'll still bring you back some gummy chu drops…" he chuckled. "…the _freshest_ kind, of course."

"Oh dear," Grandma cut in jovially, "what are you talking about, Link? Aren't you taking her trick or treating with you this year?"

Aryll's head snapped up like she'd announced free chu-jelly-filled donuts.

The boys all stopped dead, tongues caught in throats as though the woman had just asked to have said tongues ripped from their mouths and knotted into a wreath to hang on her front door.

Link stared at her. "…what?"

"Oh, I mean, I seem to recall that during _last_ year's halloween when you refused to take her, you promised to bring her along _next_ year. And well, time flows like a river…it goes by so fast, doesn't it? Last year's next year is now _this_ year! Isn't that right my sweets?"

The two sibling's eyes flew to one another, and a conversation flashed like lightning between their eyes.

 _Can I?_

 _No way._

Aryll tore her gaze away and sprang off the chair. "I'll go!" She shrieked before he could set the verdict of the conversation with a single word. "I want to go! Garandema, tell them to buring me along!" Her stomach was boiling like she'd eaten one of those flaming Goponga Flowers at the swamp she'd always been told to avoid, and the lump in her throat felt ready to burst like a froak. She clicked her tongue, gazing up at her brother as he twirled the pumpkin bucket between his finger. If he thought she was staying home to cuddle with her plush seagulls this year, he had another thing coming!

"Link you really should take your sister along, you did promise after all." Grandma nodded in rare accord with Aryll's side.

The boys fell into a resonant whisper as Link's eyes skidded back to Aryll. Her eyes pushed back against the disdain in his, her feet planting in the ground like the roots of a tree braced blindly for an exceptionally cold night. She knew this was going to be an uphill fight.

"…grandma," he started in that silky tone, "don't you think she's too… _young_ to go trick or treating? You know there are…" his eyes narrowed, "… _dangers._ "

"Yoo started when yoo were five!" Aryll blurted out.

Grandma maintained her blissful smile. "Oh, but you'll keep her safe I'm sure Link dear." The crinkled trust in her cheeks brought with it an immutable finality that begot guilt if opposed any further, and Aryll watched with a twang of singular triumph as her brother released his sigh of surrender—a sound ever-so-rare to her ears (rarer even than star fragments falling from the sky!)—and folded to his elder's will.

"…Fine. I'll bring her." As soon as he spoke the words, the hum of whispers increased and overtook the room, until Link snapped his head around and whipped them into silence with his eyes. "…that is…" he continued, a sly note creeping into his tone, "…IF. She wants to go with us."

"I want to go!" her mouth snapped without consulting her brain.

His eyes lingered on her as did the slyness in his lip, and Aryll did her best not to gulp. She knew that face. It was the same one he'd had while watching her slurp her honey chu cereal after he'd replaced the ice chu marshmallows in it with bokoblin fangs. Still, there was no backing down.

"Now Ary, dear," grandma's voice dropped into her stern, stay-away-from-lost-travellers-because-they-could-be-yiga tone (like Aryll hadn't heard that one a gazillion times) "as long as you stay close to your brother, you should be safe, but seeing as this is your first time trick or treating, I feel I should still warn you about all the dangers of—"

"—grandma," Link's smooth voice slid in, "don't you need to get up early tomorrow for your morning swim class? Don't let us keep you up. Why don't you get some rest and…" His eyes drifted back to Aryll. "…let _me_ finish this conversation with her."

Aryll could swear lightning flashed outside the window at his back as he spoke, and with it she suddenly felt a strong urge to sprint to her room and lock the door. She had to clench her fugitive toes to keep them in place.

"Oh dearest, can you?" grandma chirped, "Of course you can, of course Link, I can always count on you. Well then alrighty, I'll leave her in your capable hands." She emitted a yawn as she glided away down the hall. "You all be responsible now! Oh but of course you will be, I don't even know why I bother to say that. Well, goodnight then!" They watched as she disappeared behind a wooden wall, listening for a few long moments as her slow step receded until finally a rickety door creaked shut and the house was left to wallow in silence.

When ten years old was once again the supreme age in the house, Link released the rails that'd been captive between his fingers and stepped down, his boot reconnecting to the wooden floor with a THUMP. The boys erupted into heavy whispers again as he did, loud enough this time that Aryll's nervous ear could absorb much of it loud and clear.

"You're not seriously gonna take her along Link?!"

"She's just gonna slow us down!"

"She's useless! It'd be better to bring along my cat Mittens!"

"So now we have to _babysit_ her too?"

"This is the worst!"

"Shhh!" Link's hiss was all it took to slam their mouths shut. He flicked his eyes towards Aryll, training them on her with a glower of warning. "…Ary…you do NOT want to come out with us."

She dug her heels into the ground and met his eye with what she hoped was the bravado of a Gerudo Chief. Victory against big brother in any squabble they had was a rare occurrence for her (the last time she'd won anything against him at all was during a game of hide and seek where she'd accidentally slipped into a grotto...she'd won only because a smelly Goron had come by and randomly taken a nap ontop of the entrance hole), but those ugly odds had never been enough to make her back her off before, and now certainly wasn't the time to quit being stubborn.

She braced herself instinctively as his boots tracked towards her, lathered in their usual air of big-brother authority. His black cloak trailed behind him like a shadowy curtain tethered to his shoulders, reminding her of the creepy cursed tights she'd heard merchants gossiping about in town. The eerie yellow eyeballs on the spiked mask glared out at her from the side of his head as he orbited her slowly.

" _You,_ Ary…" she saw his fangs gleam as he spoke, and his hand cast a spidery shadow over her forehead as it approached, "…would get _wrecked_ faster than a skullkid could scream."

Aryll didn't even blink. She swatted his looming hand aside like it were a common dragonfly. Then she sucked in a deep, deep breath, imagining herself a big bellied deity like Jabun, and spoke with every ounce of authority she had. "I would NOT! I'd kick just as much butts as yoo in that labryinininianth pelace!"

This imperious statement earned her a chuckle. "Ary, do you even know what a Labyrinth is?"

Her skinny arms crossed themselves. "Course I do! It's a maze, like…" she tapped her finger to her chin, "…the signpost maze over at Ukuku Prarie! Which, I am champien of, ask the little tipsters if you donut believe me!" She flung her arms into the air. "And compared to having Zeffa fly me around the eyeland a gajillion miles up in the air, mazes are not scarey at all!"

He narrowed his eyes. "…not scary at all, huh? Even though… " He flicked his cape behind him. "…one wrong turn, and you'd be trapped inside _forever_?"

"…yeeeeeaaaaah," croaked a masked moblin, popping his head out from behind Link, "and there are deadly traps—"

"—like spikes that shoot from the walls—" squawked the Garo over his shoulder.

"—boulders pop from the ceiling and chase you til your legs give out, and you get squashed into an ugly carpet of your face—" crooned the Vire slithering out from behind him.

"—rooms where the walls close in and crush your bones into fairy dust!" hissed a Stalchild in an ash cape, springing up from behind the couch like he were rising out of Hyrule Field.

"—there are even black holes leading to the underworld!" a purple clad ghost hooted in a squat upon the table (Aryll vaguely wondered whether grandma would blame her for his footprints tomorrow). The gang of monsters were shifting towards her like a multi-colored mass of chu jelly, bandwagoning onto what their leader had initiated.

"…yeh-heh-heh-haah," the gibdo in the white cape crowed, rising off the Zol chair, creeping in alongside a grinning Wizzrobe, "you don't want to fall into the underworld, do you?"

Aryll swallowed involuntarily, faced with this assembly of eerie grins. _They think their scarey becoz of their stoopid costoomes! s_ he thought, though her feet couldn't help sliding back. "I…I won't fall in!"

"…you sure you won't, Ary?" Link whispered, his radiant blue eyes backdropping the party of ghouls. "…one misstep and you could be…" she watched his finger slide across his throat.

The monsters followed his cue by raising their fingers—one after another they pointed to her in a clockwise circle, echoing a single word as though in some demonic chant.

"Dead."

"Dead."

"Dead."

"Deaaaaachoo!" The minion in the orange cloak sneezed—and since his Goriya mask left his nose exposed, his snot flew into Aryll's slackened mouth. She choked and spat at the air as though she'd swallowed a volcanic ladybug, and a shudder broke through her momentary paralysis.

"NONONO!" She slapped at the offending indexes and stabbed back at them with her own. "I noe what yoo're all dooing! Yoo guyes are just trying to scare me so I bakk out! Well none of yoo guyses trisks are gonna work, yoo wanna noe why?!" Her hands settled themselves back on her stick figure hips. "I always get crushed between the big peepel at the store, they are just like walls and that's never turened me into fairey dust! And bulldoors aren't scarey eether, butler doors are much scareyer and I don't even run from those aneymore! Holes? I fall throo those in my room all the time! They take me strayett to the basement, and and if yoo've ever been in our basement than yoo noe it's scareyer than the underworeld dowen there! So so I'm not scared of any traps! And I'm not scared of any moaning monastars either!" She hollered this, hoping the shout of her voice would make her sound twice as confident as she actually felt.

Link was leaning against the backside of the couch, brows suspended over the show of amused lights dancing through his yes. "…oh, and what about… _witches_?"

"Wichez!" Aryll called, waving her arms. "They, theytheythey just wear funney hats while they fly around on tree branches all dey!"

Link chuckled. "…you've never actually met a witch, huh Ary?"

Aryll crossed her arms, "Shure I have! That Crazey Tracey ladey with the big red bow that sells her creepey loshion poshions at the spa!"

His lips tugged upwards into a smirk. "Let me tell you a bit about witches, Ary…" He slipped off the couch, the clack of his boots resuming their dominion over the floor. His gaze caught hers—but she glanced instinctively away, as though to avoid the direct hit of big-brother eye-zap sorcery she'd been warned about in some dummy's handbook on how-to-deal-with-bossy-brothers.

She listened to the even pacing of his step as he circled, like the ticking of the old cucco clock grandma had traded her knitted cat scarf for on the wall. It ticktocked in the background as he spoke, "…their skin is paler than the bandages on a gibdo under the full moon…" His voice drifted into her ear like the off tune melody of an old phonograph, "…and just beneath their skin, poison mites crawl over their bones, waiting for the chance to burst forth and sting the unlucky fool who steps too close…"

Aryll's mouth twitched as his shadow passed overhead, but she kept herself still. Big brother was testing her for a reaction…she could sense his eyes studying her face—like their silent rounds of you-laugh-you-lose during dinner, (they'd make faces at each other from across the table while grandma's head was turned) any sign of freakout would count as points against her. If she could only keep her face as stony as those sailors at the tavern in town did when betting their rupees on cards, she'd have this win in the bag.

Her attention drew itself back to the sound of his voice. "…and their capes…" His flingers caught the tail end of an orange cape draping over the couch, lurching the Goriya attached at the other end backwards at the call of his tug. "…are made from the elastic, gooey skin of _like-likes_ , just like their hats, which stay suctioned to their heads…" Aryll winced at his words. It was a subtle gesture that came thanks to the unsavory image of having a gunky hat stuck over her hairline (she was reminded of the time a shell blade had suctioned itself to her head at the beach—getting that removed hadn't been such a delight), but not so subtle was her gesture to get passed Link. Sensing an opening, his eyes flicked to hers with a grin. "…do you know what they keep hidden _under_ their hats, Ary?"

She crossed her arms. "It must be…a bad hairdo!"

He snickered. "…actually, a demon spike grows out the top of their head. That's why their hats are pointy."

"W-what?! R-really?!" Aryll gasped, feeling instinctively at the top of her head.

The monsters broke into a rowdy giggle at Link's back, and they drew in closer to add their own expertise on the subject. "Oh yeeeeeaaaaah, and the spike is so sharp that if they charge at you, they'll puncture your belly button through your Hylian shield!"

"The spike works like a lightning rod, so their hair gets charged with electricity, and you get shocked if you get too close!"

"—W-well—" Aryll started, only to be jostled out by more voices.

"They've got long nails that hyperextend and poke out your eyeballs!"

"They keep hordes of undead bees in their sleeves!"

"Their fiery breath will burn you to the bone!"

"Their icy gaze will freeze you to your soul!"

The clamor of their statements hung like a rotten stench in the air above Aryll's head as she backed steadily to the wall. "GO AWAY! SHOO!" She shrieked at the masks as though they were a pack of stray mutts, but the masks merely bobbed up and down amidst their laughter. Her lips pressed themselves into a pout, and she pinned her rankled gaze back on her brother. "Big berothar!" she yowled. "This is completely unfair!"

Link regarded her with a hand draped lazily over the head of grandma's armchair. "Oh…? It's _unfair?"_ His eyes narrowed. "Is _that_ what you're going to whine in battle when you're fighting a witch? You think your opponent will _care?_ "

She bit down on her cheek. "Well, at leest when I'm fyting a wich it'll be one-on-one!"

His brows drifted up his forehead. "So…that's what you think, huh?" He scoffed as he pushed off from the chair. "Ary, you should know…witches have _pets."_

Aryll huffed at him from across the room. "Yeah, so what!" She sidled along the wall to put a bit of space between herself and the masked monkeys. "Pets love me, that's why they always poop on me—"

"—I mean _monsters_ , Ary." Link cut in harshly. His lackeys slithered aside to yield him the lead. "…they crawl out of the ground from the gap between dimensions, trained to follow, shield and attack at the beck and call of their master…" Aryll watched, as though in some ironic illustration of his point, the howling masks step into sync behind her brother. She bit her cheek, circling opposite them as they stalked. It was hard to care about some imaginary witch's pet monsters with the pea-brained ones a certain somebody had trailing around the room…If only there was some way to get them all to back off. Her eyes spied her telescope lying on the table.

"…yeeeeeeeeah monsters!" crowed a voice at her back, startling her so much she was nearly knocked off her toes. She whirled around in time to find a green Helmasaur leap in a foot from her nose. "Monsters, like…"

"… _Wallmasters!"_ another voice shrilled near her ear. She spun back around, a hand at the defense of her earlobe. The neon blue mask of a wizzrobe greeted her from within a yard, standing as the sole obstacle between her and her beckoning ally upon the table. "They're giant hands…" croaked the wizzrobe, drawing towards her with his robe dragging along the floor. She shuffled cautiously to the side, eying the gleaming weapon at his rear. "…that hang from the ceiling, waiting, lurking until…"

Her shuffle was interrupted as she felt a hand seize the top of her head. She yelped as it spun her into the face of her brother. "They grab you," his eyes flashed inches from her own, "just like this."

She sprang from his hold, scampering carelessly back like a bombskit until she felt herself, upon a stroke of luck, bump against the familiar tabletop she'd been seeking. Her arm slid immediately back along the wooden surface in search of their copper companion as the maroon mask of a moblin drew into view.

"They're persistent too…" The snout on his mask snorted at her just as her fingers closed around the instrument they so coveted. "…and before long, you'll be dragged into the ceiling before you can—" Her arm sprung to life, precluding his words.

WHAM.

She swung at the grinning moblin head—but he'd leapt back before she could land the hit.

Aryll wasn't ruffled by his dodge. A surge of confidence had coursed through her arm upon reuniting with her favorite weapon, and she let it propel her into the center of the room. She whipped around, brandishing her telescope at the masks like a talisman to ward them off. "Listen here!" she trilled. "I'll brake those fantom hands with my telescope so hard, they'll get ameneejya and forget they were hands at all!"

"Ooooooooh…" the ghost mask in the purple cape crooned at her back, "…but what will you do about poes…?" The candles on the counter beside him seemed to flicker as he spoke, and they reflected an orange hue onto his chin. "…you can't hit them. They'll turn invisible and haunt you from inside portraits on the walls, and then, when you can feel something evil watching you, they'll attack you in the dark when you can't see them at all—"

Aryll seized the closest candle and whisked the fire in his face, forcing him to double back. "Eeezeee!" she chirped. "Ghosts are scared of the lite, so I'll just wave a lanturen so burite in their faces, they'll go blind!"

"—But what about _redeads?_ " shrilled the Gibdo, dangling his arms forward in an exaggerated lurch towards her. "They can paralyze you with a scream way before you can even move! And that's before they wrap around your flesh to suck out your living soul—"

Aryll had sunken her fingers into their inflatable Zol chair and flung it straight into his open arms. He seesawed backwards and nearly toppled, but managed to fling the chair aside blindly—it hit the orange-caped Goriya in the back instead, pummeling him to the ground. Aryll waved her telescope at the gibdo like it were an extension of her index finger. "I'll come dressed in a sooot so fat and slipperey, those redeads will bounce right off like blubbery blobs!"

"—and what'll you do if there's a Ghini?" A voice slithered behind her. Her head gyrated around, and she flinched before the great cyan eye of an Eyegore as it stared out from three quarters of a face. The mouth beneath the eye crowed at her, "…Ghini tongues are so wickedly long that they can reach all the way across the great sea…" Aryll stepped instinctively back from the oversized eye, but her sock snagged on some kind of nail in the floor. "…and a fat suit won't do you any good, either. They'll take one look at it with their giant eye and pop it with their tongues like a balloon…" The eye loomed over Aryll as she tugged at her sock, trying to free it. "…then they'll strangle you and squeeze out your organs as a delicacy for them to feast upon…"

She reached down and ripped her caught sock off the ground and off her likely stinky foot—grimy as it was from trekking around the floor all day—and shoved the sock at his taunting mouth. He choked and broke into a coughing fit like she'd tried to feed him horse poop, and she stood over him with crossed arms. "…and so? I'll just take a bath in Misery Mire—that pelace is so disgusting, that Ghini will be pewking beefore his tongue eeven comes within a few feet of me!"

"…but what if you see a _Reapling?_ " Aryll craned her head towards the stalchild in the ash cape swinging his feet from the table.

"Oooh, _nice_ one…" whispered the Vire sitting beside him with a smirk.

"They've got red eyes that glare at you out from the face of a skull…" added the Garo beside the Vire, "…and they float around in smoky gray cloaks like phantoms…"

"They carry giant death scythes that can slice through anything like goat butter…" continued the wizzrobe next to the Vire.

"Their scythes can even slice open holes into the underworld!" finished the ghost in purple sitting at the end of the row. "What're you gonna do about that?"

Aryll fiddled with her telescope like she were tuning a musical instrument. "Oh, well I'll…" she pointed it at the row of beasts. "…I'll terick it into slicing a hole under itself so it gets sucked into the underworeld itself!"

At this declaration, the voice of every monster in the room seemed to join together into one chaotic laugh, and Aryll flinched as the sound of it came at her from every direction.

"Silly, that's not gonna do you any good…" came a voice from her left.

"Don't you know, a Reapling is a bad omen…" added another at her right.

"Seeing one means a calamity is coming for you…"

"The moment you lay eyes on a Reapling is the moment you're doomed…"

The seated row of monsters had kicked off from the table, and the full lot of them had joined together in a giggling ring around her. She held her telescope up with both hands, pointing it at the circling pack of ghouls as the sapphire eyes of their leader looked on, perched casually above them on the spine of the couch.

"Ary, just admit it's too much for you…" Link drawled from behind them, "…and I'll make them back off. Of course that means you're not going with us." _Just stay here, where it's safe._ His eyes commanded her from across the room. _You don't belong on this escapade._

Aryll squeezed her telescope, half wishing she had the strength to make it burst it in front of him, to prove him wrong. In a motion of defiance, she flung her telescope at his head. He caught it without moving a muscle outside his arm—not even so much as an eye muscle to blink.

 _I'm going!_ Her eyes telegrammed back to his.

He glanced at the telescope with a frown, and sighed.

Aryll's little feet stomped their way up onto the rickety wooden table to give those little boogers a piece of her mind. "Listen all you little monastors, little ghouls! You think you're scarey?! I've seen clowens at the circus scareyer than you! So why don't you all just give up alreddey and admit I've won!" Her feet trembled lightly upon the table as she spoke, but she stiffened them. Just a bit more and she'd have this…she was so close!

"…hey Link," the Helmasaur masked in green nudged him, "…how about we tell her about the cursed legion of pumpkin heads?"

The red masked Vire sniggered as he prowled to Link's other side. "Yeah, let's tell her a good ghost story."

"….no." A hard gleam set in Link's eye. "No ghost stories. This ends NOW." He snapped her telescope shut, and pinned Aryll with an ironclad stare. "You're not going Ary, and that's final. Drop it already."

Aryll stomped like a thwomp upon the table. "NO! Yoo have to buring me! Yoo paromised garandema!"

"Get down from the table before you break it, and go to your room."

"I won't! I won fair and squware this time! If you leeve me beehined I'll just follow yoo owet the door!"

"Ary, NO!"

"Let's tell her the curse of the girl whose dad got turned into a gibdo!" someone chirped beside Link's ear.

"The princess cursed by a witch to forever wear only hideous black tights!"

"How about the curse of the gerudo that got brainwashed for seven years by two witches!"

"Go ahead! Tell it to me!" Aryll challenged, her fists clenched, looking like a bull ready to ram through a wall. "And if I don't get scared, yoo have to accept that I'm coming along once and for all!"

Link shook his head, a hand pressed over his forehead. "Whether you're scared is _not_ the problem here!"

"C'mon Link, let's give her a scary story…" someone was nudging him again. "…she _asked_ for it!"

"We scare her good, she backs off for good."

Link pressed his lips into a taut line and glanced towards Aryll, her stubborn feet planted upon the table. Finally, he closed his eyes. "…Fine. One story. _Just_ one."

The monsters whooped like they'd been given permission to set off canons in the house.

With a renewed grin, the Helmasaur drew towards her, wasting no time launching into a suitable tale for Aryll's ripe ears. "Not long ago…" he began in a croak, dragging his cape, "…there was a creepy old lady who kept lots of pumpkins outside her house—"

Link pounded his boot into the tail of the boy's green cape and yanked backwards on it, glaring down on the boy's startled face. _"— **I** —_ will tell the story!" His voice was so sharp that could voices cut, it would've sliced that Helmasaur in two. Said Helmasaur yelped and shrunk back like he'd been stabbed through the head.

Link's eye drew back to Aryll who stood like a misplaced tree growing out the table. For a moment, the siblings glared in silence at each other. Then Link snapped his fingers and gestured down. "Sit, Ary."

She pouted and flicked her head aside like a willful horse.

He rolled his eyes. "Fine then. Stand."

Aryll stuck her tongue out as he whirled his cape and strode away. She watched as he settled himself comfortably in the plush seat of grandma's arm chair, awaiting him to start the final stage of their match.

"This is not just a story, Ary…" he leaned his face against his left palm, a hint of mischief returning to his eye, "….this _actually_ happened."

She plopped down from the table (despite her earlier declining to do so) and kicked her feet over the edge of the table across from him, ready to get the dastardly story over with. "…and?"

"…you remember that kid who used to go around kicking all the pigs on the island, the one who used to call himself Bully?"

Aryll scrunched her nose, like he'd reminded her of a particularly stinky plant growing outside her window. "Yah, I remember him kicking my piggy backpack into the water!"

Link played absently with a strand of hair beside his ear. "…do you…know what ever happened to him?"

She crossed her arms. "He went on vacation to Hytopia and never came back!" ( _Lucky duck,_ she added under her breath.)

His eyes flickered. "That's what the adults said. But you know…that was just a lie to cover up what _really_ happened."

"…what do you mean?" Aryll's palm fidgeted against the table.

He chuckled. "…Last Halloween, he went around kicking every pumpkin on the island. He didn't care whether the pumpkin belonged to a knight, a thief…" his eyes flicked up. "…or to the Shadow Hag."

Aryll blinked. "Who?"

He leaned in conspiratorially. "…you know that old mansion on the hill, the one at Moonlit Grotto? The one that puts lots of jack-o-lanterns outside each year?"

She frowned. The house surrounded by gnarled, moaning trees atop a hill, always lit up by an assembly of jack-o-lanterns. After all the gossip she'd heard from the little tipsters about it, she definitely knew the one.

Link read the expression on her face with his eyes. "Yes Ary…there's an old witch living there." He closed one eye. "Of course…Bully didn't know that. He went around kicking in the faces of every pumpkin outside her house."

Link glanced down to where a pumpkin bucket lay beside his foot, and he booted it up into his arms. "…Just as Bully finished kicking in the last one, the front door creaked open, and there stood the old crone. When she saw what he'd done to all her pumpkins…"

Aryll instinctively clenched the table. Link's lip tugged upwards mischievously. "…she _smiled_ at him. It was a crooked smile, with teeth full of rancid holes like moldy swiss cheese. ' _Why don't you come in?'_ she told him. _'I've got plenty more pumpkins for you to kick inside the mansion.'_ "

Link flicked a stray hair behind his ear. "Of course, Bully…" his eyes jumped sharply to Aryll for a moment. "…like _you_ , Ary, had no sense of _danger._ And so, he followed her inside without a second thought."

Aryll bit her lip, stifling the urge to make a comeback at him. He did not just compare her to that baboon kid!

Link traced circles on the arm of the chair. "When he got inside, he was greeted by an abode of dusty, worn furniture. Among the furniture were plenty of pots to kick covered in cobwebs, but no pumpkins. _'Hey, where are all the pumpkins?'_ he asked the witch.

"The old hag merely smiled at him. _'Before that boy, I was wondering if you could do me a small favor. You see…'"_ Link leaned into his elbow. _"'…there's a cursed pumpkin in my basement. That poor pumpkin was once a child prior to being cursed, but sadly I'm unable to help the child. I can't get near the pumpkin at all…but you might be able to.'"_ Link pressed a thumb into his widening lip. _'Of course, only a_ special _child would be able to do it.'_

"Bully crossed his arms. _'I'm special you old hag!'_ he told her.

 _"'Yes…you are,_ ' the Shadow Hag rasped through her putrid grin. _'If you could kick that pumpkin's head in, the curse on it would be broken. Do that, and I'll give you all the pumpkins you can kick to your hearts content.'"_ Link leaned forward, a shadow crossing his features. _"'…but you must be careful. If you meet the eyes on that pumpkin, you'll be cursed too.'_

"The boy who called himself Bully merely puffed out his belly and laughed. _'Do you think I'm some kind of baby? I'm not scared of some doofy pumpkin! I'll go down there and kick its face in!'_

"The witch's smile cracked wider. _'How…_ wonderful, _'"_ Link's eyes gleamed as he drawled her words. _"'Well then, the door to the basement…'"_ He raised his index, lazily, and pointed past Aryll's shoulder, _"'…is over_ there. _'"_

Instinctively, Aryll—as well as all the monsters in the room who had settled upon the floor and sprawled over the couches—turned their heads to check the back wall, though they knew no door would be there.

SLAM.

Aryll whipped her head back around as something struck the table in close proximity to her ear, and she was greeted by a familiar boot planted firmly at her side. She raised her head to find, leaning into his boot over her, the watchful eyes of her brother. They leaned towards her as his voice dipped low, "…wanna guess what he found in the basement, Ary?"

"Um…" Aryll blinked, leaning back. "Her tewentey seven cats?"

He chuckled. "…nothing, at first." Link retracted his foot, and Aryll exhaled lightly as he drifted into a stroll around the room, sliding his hand across their furniture."…there were bookshelves caked in grime, rickety old chairs and desks…plenty of stuff for Bully to kick, but none of them what he was looking for. He was about to go back up complaining to the witch that she was senile and there were no pumpkins to pummel, when finally…he saw them."

"…them?" The goriya piped from the inflatable Zol chair. "You mean there was more than one? I thought you said it was only one pum—OW!" The garo scrunched next to him on the chair elbowed him quiet.

Link raised a brow at him before flicking his eyes back to Aryll, sitting huddled at the edge of the table with sweat trickling down her forehead, watching him with bug-eyed concentration. He chuckled. "…there were pumpkins, lots of them riddling the floors, the shelves and the counters, but Bully couldn't kick these ones because…" Link picked up an empty bottle and burst it like a balloon in his hands. "…they were _already_ kicked in."

Link's boots began to parade between the sprawled forms of the listeners on the floor, and every masked pair of eyes followed. "…As Bully took a closer look at the smashed pumpkins, he realized something even _stranger_ …" Link twirled the pumpkin bucket between his fingers, " …these weren't just _any_ smashed pumpkins, but the very _same_ ones he'd smashed earlier that night just outside her house." The Garo and the Goriya stared up at him from the Zol chair, and Link leaned over them with a smirk. "…and while Bully stared at them, the smashed pumpkins began to…" his eyes grew wider and inched closer, "…move _towards_ him."

The young vampire storyteller drew back and thundered his foot into the floor, jolting the whole room such that all the pumpkin buckets bounced, and the rascals all flinched beneath their masks. Link snickered, then leapt into a crouch upon the floor, whipping his blazing eyes between the lot of them. "They began to rise out of the ground like corpses, growing skeletal limbs with which they could avenge their stolen eyes by clawing out his."

The monsters _Oooooohed_ to his words, and Link returned them an impish grin. "As they lurched towards him with their beaten-in pumpkin heads, Bully did the only thing he could."

From the Zol chair, the Goriya kicked his bucket lightly in the air like a hacky sack. "…he kicked them?" His orange mask tilted down as he bunted the bucket, only it slung up into the face of the Garo sitting next to him, knocking him off the chair; Instinctively, the Goriya sprang up to abandon the chair too, bolting across the room before his buddy could retaliate.

"…He _ran_." Link watched the Goriya's mad sprint, then stood up and resumed his own steady step across the room. "He fled from them, turning corner after corner on his pounding feet. But it was no good, for around every corner were only _more_ of them, chasing him on and on. That's when he noticed…" the young narrator halted his step, "…what else was wrong. For no matter how far he raced, or how many corners he turned, he seemed to be getting… _nowhere_."

Link flipped a finger upwards. "He looked up in search of a ceiling, but found none—only a black void above his head. Finally, the truth of where he was clicked, and he understood that the witches basement was no basement at all, but rather…" he smirked, glancing back towards Aryll. "…a _labyrinth._ "

Aryll's eye flickered. Link tucked his sideburns behind his shoulder and paced in closer to her. "The Shadow Hag had brought him down there to be done in by the very pumpkins he'd done in himself…Bully felt a sense of doom wash over him as he realized this, and he started to wonder whether they'd rip off his limbs or devour him, or offer him as a sacrifice to some angry pumpkin god…"

Across from Link, Aryll was quivering as though the temperature had dropped below ten degrees. At some point, her favorite seagull pillow—which had been lounging on the couch earlier—had magicked its way into her arms, and she clutched it like a floatie in the middle of the sea. Link took in her quivering knees, chattering teeth, ashen knuckles and face with a raised brow. "…you can stop me at any time, Ary, If you're too scared."

"F-finish the storey alreddey!"

He paused, watching her for a moment as though deliberating whether to continue—but after a few moments, he closed his eyes and resumed the tale. "…Bully was stricken with panic, desperate for a means of escape. In the midst of his hysteria, he finally came upon a lone pumpkin in the center of an open room. The pumpkin was ripe, perfectly round, and…had no face. It was…" Link's eye drifted to a round tangerine lantern that hung from the ceiling above Aryll's head. "…the first and _only_ pumpkin that wasn't smashed. _'This must be the cursed pumpkin that stupid old hag sent me to get!'_ Bully thought. _'This could be the way out, I just need to kick it in!'_

Link's eyelids lowered halfway over his eyes. "Bully squeezed his eyes shut, dashed in close and…" The avid narrator spun around and kicked the Zol chair, startling the stalchild and gibdo that'd next taken it up, and they scurried off it like mice. "…he smashed his foot right into its core. _'Yes!'_ Bully thought, hearing his foot make contact, _'I win!'"_

The young storyteller ran a hand over the mask to the side of his head and grinned. "With his eyes still shut, Bully waited a few moments for something to happen, a flash of light maybe—anything to show a curse being broken…but nothing did. Instead, a chill ran through him as he slowly, finally realized, far too late…"

Link turned from his listeners towards the moonlit window, and they gazed at the ebony trail of his cape. "…that the witch had lied from the start. There wasn't any way for him to break any curse…in fact, she was likely the source of the curse in the first place."

They heard a chuckle from his back. "…That's when Bully heard the pumpkin laugh. He flung open his eyes, surprised to hear the echo of laughter coming from that pumpkin which had no face. And finally…" Their narrator swung around with a fanged smirk. "…the pumpkin rotated towards him, and its crooked smile and slitted eyes came into view."

Link's hand shot out and caught the rung on a rocking chair, lurching it far enough backwards that he could lean his elbows over the top and fix the Goriya who had relocated there in an upside down stare. "The very moment Bully looked it in the eye, something began to happen to his head. His face began to stretch and bulge…" Link clapped the boy's ears and squeezed lightly on his head, his eyes bright as the moon. "…Bully's hands felt at his face as it deformed, feeling as his skin became course until he finally realized…" Link leaned further over the chair, "…his head was turning into a…"

"…DURIAN!" the Goriya's pinched face blurted out.

"…pumpkin." Link stared down at the orange mask with a raised brow, and released the boy's head. His azure eyes withdrew from the rocking chair, and it reeled forward as he sprung off. All the monsters seemed to stare at the Goriya, who winced and lowered his head.

Link resumed treading around the room for the finale of his story. "Bully had fallen victim to the pumpkin's curse, and he knew it. He clawed at his head to stop it from happening, but it was no use." Link's narrating voice boomed off the walls as it crescendoed. "Bully could practically _feel_ his meager brain turning to pulp as the ability to think slipped from him…and his eyes blurred as his vision, along with all his other senses, began to fade. The last thing his eyes saw, before his consciousness melted away, was…" Link picked a spare bucket off a table and flipped it over in his hands, matching its smirk with his own. "…the vision of that evil pumpkin grinning at him."

There was a snort around the room as Link flung the bucket absently behind him and it knocked someone in the head. Finally, Link plopped casually back down into grandma's armchair, as though he'd just finished telling them about a pleasant day at the beach. "And that, was how Bully was cursed to join the Legion of pumpkin heads, doomed to wander the witch's labyrinth in a zombified state for all eternity…"

The monsters littering the room began to whoop as they rose off the floor. ("What a stupidhead that Bully was!" one said. "Yeah, I wouldda whooped that witch soon as I saw her!") Meantime, Aryll looked seasick upon the table, clutching her seagull pillow to her chest like it were a hot water bottle for easing what must've been one of the most petrifying tummy aches she'd had in her seven years of existence.

Link clicked his tongue, eyes anchored on her. "So, Ary…" he leaned his chin on his clasped hands. "… _still_ want to fight monsters and witches with us in the Savage Labyrinth?"

Aryll was jittering from her shoulders to her toes, but still her neck nodded itself as though operating on an automatic hinge. "Ngghhhyy-y-y-y-y-ye-es-s-s…" she managed to choke out.

He tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. "…even though there could be cursed pumpkins around? After all, there are pumpkins _everywhere_ tonight." His eye caught hers. "If you look one in the eye, you'll be cursed too."

Aryll swallowed. "…w-well, it's fine! As long as I don't look at the p-pumpekins!"

He chuckled. "…right, as long as you don't look at the pumpkins…"

It was then that someone snapped off the lights. In the darkness, the luminous pumpkin buckets became disembodied glowing heads, and the ghouls raised them up like masks, transforming the monstrous little lot of them into a fluorescent mob of jeering pumpkin-faced clones. Aryll yelped and jumped up from the table, stumbling back as they floated towards her. Meantime, her brother's voice drifted into her ear, _"…don't look at the pumpkins, Ary…"_

But Aryll had already looked at them. Immediately, instinctively, her arms flung themselves over her eyes, like she were afraid a mere glimpse of those radiant orange globes was enough to infect her. "N-no-no-no…" she whispered to herself, "…my head's…not a pumpekin…it's not…not a pumpekin…!" She repeated this like a mantra that could ward off the potential symptoms of being cursed, and her fingers felt at her head as though to assure herself that the words were still true. "…it's n-not a…not a p-p…NOT A PUMPEKIN SEE?!" She could hear the echo of giggles permeating from all sides as she stumbled about with her eyes squeezed shut. Finally, her back landed against someone's open palms, and she heard her brother's voice whisper one simple word into her ear.

"…boo."

Aryll let out an ear splitting scream (that would've woken grandma was she not having the sleep of her life thanks to a fairy) and with a final stagger backwards, her rear thumped to the floor.

An echo of laughter shook the room, and the lights flicked back on. Aryll raised her eyes from the floor to find her brother standing victoriously above her. She knew, from the solemn look on his face, that their match was set. His eyes spoke the result.

 _You lose._ They said.

Aryll's fingers dug themselves into the ocean blue rug beneath her collapsed frame while the corners of her mouth sank like anchors down her face. She burrowed her nose into her knees and pressed her arms over her head as though to block out everything overhead. A lone hiccup escaped her throat.

Link's brow furrowed as he gazed upon her lowered head. Beside him, the other boys were whipping their masks off, lost amidst their rowdy laughter. The Vire in the red mask jeered as he leaned in, "She's so scared she's gonna pee herself!" He sniggered, raising his pumpkin bucket above her head. "Hey, let's put a pumpkin bucket on her head and see if she starts cryi—" In a nanosecond, Link's face went colder than Snowpeak in the dead of night. Quick as lightening, he struck the pumpkin bucket out of the boy's hands. At once all laughter in the room ceased as though the sound had been cut, and the bucket clanged to the floor in the midst of dead silence.

"ENOUGH." The alpha wolf cub flashed his eyes in warning at the one that had spoken out of line and the boy sewed his mouth shut. "We're going." His ten year old boots aligned themselves with the door, but after a few steps, they paused. His eyes drew back towards Aryll a moment, looking as though there was something he wanted to say, but then he raised his mask back over his face and strode away without a word. Behind him, all the ten year old pairs of boots in the room fell into line, lowering their masks back over their eyes and trying to strut like he did one by one out the door.

Aryll watched their line of shadows disappear out the corner of her eye, listening as the front door creaked shut. She lay with her arms hugging her legs for an eternity after they left (or ten minutes, according to the cucco clock on the wall). _Stoopid pumpekins,_ she thought digging her fingers into the next closest thing they could burrow into besides the rug—the holes in their tattered couch. _Stoopid monastar masks, stoopid big berothar…what does he noe aneyway?!_ Her eyes snapped open as she was suddenly struck by a very belated flash of rage. She jumped to her feet and shouted at the closed door. "WELL YOO SNORE LIKE A WALRUS IN YOOR SLEEP!" She smacked her forehead. Why couldn't she have thought of that comeback, or any comeback at all for that matter, while he was here?! Why couldn't she have held her ground just a bit more? She reared her leg back and let her anger channel itself into a kick at their poor inflatable Zol chair, which rolled over like an omelette being flipped on its other side for further pan-searing. Her feet followed this up by thundering her ungraceful self up the stairs like she'd just woken from a nap at death mountain crater. She strutted right passed big brother's room (NO ENTRY: KEEP OUT it said on the door) and into her own, slamming the door behind her.

In the little space of her abode, she began to pace, pretending she were in some mad lab for concocting schemes. Her blood was running now, working its magic on her restless feet—she knew there was no way she'd be able to keep still tonight.

"Me? Scared? Ha!" Her feet waltzed themselves around the cracks in her floor. "I'm not scared." A fire had kindled its way into her eyes, and her head swung up. "I'M NOT SCARED, YOU HEAR ME BIG BEROTHAR?!" she screeched at the ceiling, clenching her fists.

An owl hooted outside, and she glanced towards the window, rolling up her sleeves. "I'll show him! I'll go terick or tereating by MYSELF and go to…to…all the SCAREYEST houses on the eyeland…!" she gasped, as the image of a certain house upon a hill, surrounded by a field of grinning pumpkins came to mind, and a chill tickled its way along her spine. All of a sudden, she knew _exactly_ where she'd be going tonight.

"Of course…" she thought out loud, tapping her chin. "…a scarey house needs an equalley scarey costoom…" her eyes drew to her closet, which was inhabited mostly by blue sun dresses. She frowned. Her usual clothes wouldn't do…for this daring expedition, she needed to dress in _black. Lots_ of black.

An image of her brother's jet black vampire cape flashed through her head, and she frowned. Unless grandma wouldn't mind her borrowing the window drapes to tie around her neck, a black cape wasn't happening. Her mind drifted to the hearsay in town about some so-called pair of cursed black tights. She blinked. Yes…black tights would work.

Within a few minutes, she'd donned the stealthy look of a Sheikah (or at least as close as she could get) using a simple combo of plain black tights and fitted shirt…only her pigtails ruined the look. Her fingers caught the bands in her hair and ripped them out, releasing her hair into a sunny cascade—every blonde inch of which she then stuffed into a black beanie she'd gotten as a carnival prize one time—and viola! The look was complete.

Or…that was what she wanted to say, but something was missing. She stared at herself in the mirror, frowning at her wide blue eyes. She tried narrowing them in imitation of her brother. "Sit, Ary!" She waggled her finger at the mirror, dropping her voice to an exaggerated low pitch. "Listen to me cause I'm bigger than yoo and sooooooper bossy!" She sighed…her face just wasn't scary enough. It needed some…extra edge.

Her eyes landed on a bucket of paint, sitting on the floor beside her bed, next to an assortment of small gourds. Her brow shot up as she was struck by an idea. Normally she'd be using that paint to color over the gourds with floral designs and silly faces, but not tonight.

Aryll strutted over to the bucket and dropped to her knees before it. She peeled back the lid, revealing a minty neon glow that radiated onto her face. She grinned. This was luminous paint! Just what she needed to make her face look like a glowing skull…

With one palm against the floor, she leaned her head over the bucket and dipped her fingers in the paint.

 _Clang._

Just as she withdrew her fingers, a stone clattered against her window—it startled her so much that her palm slipped, and her face went tumbling straight into the bucket.

For a moment, Aryll let her face sit there, as though she were wallowing in her fails for the evening. Then, another stone interrupted her lament as it knocked the window again. Her head flung up from the paint, and she sent the window a glowing frown. Who in Hyrule could be throwing stones? A trick-or-treating deku scrub that had mistaken the window for the door?

She found, upon opening the window, the boy in the orange cloak and goriya mask from her brother's monster posse earlier standing directly below her, holding a handful of stones. The moment Aryll's face appeared in the window, he whipped his mask off to reveal a familiar, toothy, dorky grin.

"Hey Ary!" He frowned at the bright paint mask dripping from her chin. "Um…what you do to your face? It kinda looks like a firefly's butt."

"Joel!" Aryll's brows shot up in surprise. "What're yoo dooing here? Didn't yoo leave with the rest of them?"

He grinned at her. "If I had, would I still be here?" He held up two glowing pumpkin buckets. "Let's go trick or treating, for real!" Then he glanced at the pumpkin buckets and winced. "Oh uhm, that is…if you still want."

Aryll pouted. She climbed over her windowsill and sprang like a cat into the nearby tree, sliding down the length of the trunk without a word.

He shrugged. "I'll take that as a yes."

She took off ahead of him down the moonlit avenue, allowing her feet to propel her along the path they had predetermined for her expedition tonight. As she pounded along the cobblestone, a colorful assortment of costumed children embellished both sides of the road, dressed as everything from a fairy to an iron knuckle. A young witch bumped shoulders with Aryll as she passed, and Aryll flinched at the reminder of her spooky destination tonight. Joel was huffing not far behind, and she heaved a sigh of relief as he caught up to her. It was lucky, at least, she wasn't heading there alone.

As he fell into step beside her, she raised a brow at him. "Why're yoo here Joel?" Her arms crossed themselves. "What? Not going on Big Berothar's dungeon crawling monastar hunting excapade after all?"

He shrugged, raising his arms behind his head. "Nahh…to be honest…I'm too scared to go just like you are." He leaned in with mischief in his dimpled cheeks, "…want to know a secret? The others are all scared out of their _wits_ too, they just won't admit it 'cause they want to look tough in front of Link. That guy's got nerves of _steel._ "

Arylls brow twitched. "I'm not scared Joel! I'm not!"

Joel frowned. "Ary, it's cool with me to admit you're scared. I just did, see?"

"I'M NOT SCARED!"

His brow creased. "…you okay?" He put a hand on her forehead. "They got to you back there, didn't they? I could tell things were going a bit too far…" He shuddered. "Hive mind is creepy, right?"

Aryll glowered. "YOO were part of it, Joel! Why didn't yoo side with me, I could've yoosed the backup!"

He raised a brow. "Uh, because your brother's more terrifying than a wolf from the twilight realm?" He winced and flashed her a look of alarm. " _Don't_ tell him I said that. EVER. You swear?"

She frowned. "Yoo idolize him Joel. I noe yoo do."

He smiled wryly. "Yeah…you know there was one time during boy scouts, he caught a gyorg in the water with his bare hands…he ripped open its jaw and tore it down the middle, then he hurled both halves of it over the head of our chaperone without him even noticing…" he trailed off at Aryll's expression and cleared his throat.

"…Ary, you know how some guys act all tough and like they can send a knife between your eyes blindfolded, but they're actually just all talk and the moment everyone realizes that, they turn into total spineless chuchus?"

Aryll crossed her arms. "Yah. Everywunn is like that."

"But not your brother, Ary." Joel shook his head. "You take away all his gear, all his backup, all his friends, and he can _still_ send a knife sailing between your eyes… _blindfolded_. He is legit scary." Joel twirled the pumpkin bucket between his fingers, "…I mean, as an enemy. As a friend, he's cool. But that's why nobody wants to be on his bad side."

"What's yoor point Joejoe?"

"The point is going up against him is kinda like…asking to have your head blown off, marinated in monster sweat, deep fried, then popped back on in reverse. So y'see, unless you don't mind getting totally reconstructed…you can't really challenge him."

"Uhm, hello!" Aryll shouted pointing at her own face. "What am I, chopped cow liver? I have no probelem challenging him!"

"That's different Ary, you're family. He pulls his punches with you."

"He does _not!_ Yoo saw our fyte just now!"

"...Oh sure. We _all_ saw how _that_ went down."

"…what's that supposed to mean?"

"Well he got you good, didn't he? I mean, you were so scared out of your wits back there I'm surprised you decided to come trick or treating at all."

"He did NOT get to me! I am NOT scared!"

He cast her a look. " _…really?_ …So then…you're not scared of any monsters like…ghinis or reaplings?"

"No."

"What about…witches?"

"NO!"

"Not even…" he held up their pumpkin buckets and rasped, leaning towards her, "…the leeeeegion of cursed pumpkin heads…?"

"JOEL!" she snapped.

"Fine fine! Okay."

Aryll glowered at him. "Yoo don't believe me do yoo?"

"…I didn't say that."

"It's all over yoor face!"

Joel squinted. "Well…your face is one giant luminous bulb, so it's a bit harder to read than usual.

"Hmph!" Aryll flicked her head away, directing her eyes back to the road in front. "Well I'll just proove it to yoo too then!"

He absently kicked at the stones by his feet. "Prove what?"

Her face cracked into a grin as though amused at some inside joke. "…Joel…have yoo noticed where we're going yet?"

He shrugged. "…not really…I've just been following you…"

She giggled and broke into a skip. "…last one to the mansion is a hard boiled egg!" Her feet sprinted off before his dazed mind could absorb the implication in her words.

Joel yawned. "…last one to what mansion…?" his eyes drew lazily up the hill she was running, towards where a decrepit dusky mansion stood, guarded by a mini battalion of bright-eyed pumpkins…

His eyes flung open and the bucket slipped from his fingers into the cold dirt. "ARY?!" He whipped his head around, wild eyes taking in the gnarled, darkened trees clustering overhead on both sides, casting their long shadows over the path. His hands flew up to clutch his head, as though to keep it on straight. "MOTHER OF DIN?! WHEN DID WE GET HERE?!"

He seized his bucket off the ground and bolted up the hill after her.

As Aryll approached the peak, she slowed before the garden of jack-o-lanterns and came to a full halt several feet out from them. Above her, the witch's mansion loomed like a treacherous tower, seeming to grow taller the more she stared. It was quiet, save for the wooden boards creaking in the night breeze, and the battered open windows which revealed a darkness akin to the deep space beneath her bed. All of a sudden, as she stood in the shadow of its high roof, the rush of adrenaline that'd been propelling her to this point seemed to evaporate, and a wave of fear pervaded her stomach, manifesting in the light trembling of her toes.

Joel arrived beside her in a huff. "I can't believe…" he panted, "…you actually brought us here…" then he stood up, took in the full offerings of their destination, and copied her petrified gawk. "S-so this is it huh, the Shadow Hag's place…"

The two children stood, no taller than a mailbox, before the creaking house. In the midst of their fawning, a bolt of lightning seemed to light up the house and they both jumped back as though the bolt had landed at their feet.

The Goriya exchanged a look with his black clad companion. "…y-you sure you wanna g-go in there?"

Aryll gulped. "W-well…we're alreddey here so…it would be s-s-stoopid to t-turn bakk now…"

He gazed at her with flickering eyes. "Ary, y-you're trembling…"

"N-no, I'm just c-cold…"

"O-okay well, y-you wanna go ring the doorbell? I'll go a-after y-you…"

Aryll stared at the pathway leading up to the door. Fifty feet of jack-o-lanterns jeered up at her from each side of the path, like sneering onlookers crowding the sides of a race. Though she avoided meeting their orange pairs of eyes head on, they still sent her a wave of tingles through her peripheral vision. Her foot fidgeted against the stone path, itching to veer off from it.

What was she doing hesitating? If she turned back here, she'd never hear the end of it from her brother. _"…you were too scared to go in, weren't you Ary?"_ she could almost hear him drawling in her head.

She clenched her teeth. The thought of making big brother eat his words was enough to charge her feet on enough willpower to storm on ahead, and she made them plunge forward. Her eyes anchored themselves steadily on the door as she approached, but an acute awareness of the orange bulbs radiating at her feet still prickled at her, conscious as she was of their leers. _'…don't look at the pumpkins, Ary…'_ her brother's voice echoed in her head. "I'm…not…" she whispered to herself, "…not scared of the p-pumpekins…n-not—"

 _—Bump._

Something banged against her foot, and instinctively, she looked down.

The glowing smirk of a pumpkin greeted her from the base of her leg.

A great shriek dislodged from her throat, accompanied by the fling of an arm over her eyes and a blind stagger backwards. "NO! NOO! I LOOKED AT IT! NOOOO!"

"Uh," Joel stood behind her, blinking at her impromptu boogieing. "…Ary?"

Aryll's feet, lacking the aid of her eyes, could only stumble themselves over more pumpkins, and a topple forwards flung her head straight into the open top of a carved jack o lantern. She shrieked beneath her screwed shut eyes and scrambled off the ground quicker than a beamos could shoot her while down…but instantly she knew from the weight upon her head that something had latched there which shouldn't be. Her hands flung up to feel her skin and were met instead with a coarse, pulpy roughness, and that set off a dose of panic in her head.

"Joel…" she squeaked through sealed eyes, "….please…. _please_ tell me…tell me there isn't a…" her fingers clawed at the skin of her organic helmet, "…a p-p-pumpekin…tell me it's not a _pumpekin_ on my head!"

Joel cringed at her vegetable hardhat. "Um…it's…um…how should I put it…it's a….gourd? Carrot colored…Squash?"

Slowly, Aryll opened her eyes. There were holes in the carrot colored squash through which she could see Joel's stricken face, staring like she'd become see-through as a ghost. A brook ran past his feet only yards from them both, and Aryll let her feet parade themselves over to its edge despite the objections of her churning stomach. At the water's verge, she leaned tentatively in to glimpse her reflection.

She was met with the upside down smirk of a jack o lantern aglow with minty luminous paint, staring back in place of her head.

It screamed at her. "I'M A…A CURSED PUMPKIN HEAD! AHHHHHHHHHH!"

Before she knew what she was doing, she'd ricocheted around and let her feet speed her as far from the Shadow Hag's house as they possibly could go with Joel in toe—though neither one ever did see the witch, or even make it to her door.

o | O | o

Halloween at age seven had gone just like that. But there was a difference between then and now. Seven years later, she wasn't that girl anymore.

She was Llyra.

Three inches from Llyra's face was, once again, a glowing, grinning pumpkin head—but this time, she didn't flinch; She glared it square in the eye as though she were melting it with her mind.

On the other hand, Colin squealed behind her like a startled pig. "IT'S A CURSED PUMPKIN HEAD!" He bolted out of the dirt heap and shot off in the other direction.

Simultaneously, the pumpkin let out a high-pitched female scream and bolted off just the way Colin had, but in the opposite direction.

Llyra stared, open mouthed, from the hysterical flight of the pumpkin head on one side, to the identical flight of her friend on the other. She slapped a hand to her forehead, ditched between them in the middle of the hall, feeling suddenly as though a moronic aura had invaded the air.

After a drawn out sigh and a few corner turns, Llyra found Colin curled in a corner like a magtail, clutching and scraping at his head. "P-p-p-pumpkin!" she heard him whisper. "My head is….it's turning into a PUMPKIN!"

Llyra stared down at him with crossed arms. "Colin."

"W-what?"

She crouched in front of him and met his eye. "This might come as a shock but…" her finger pointed at his face, "you're head's not a pumpkin."

He gasped like she'd told him he were missing his right arm. "It…it's not?! Then…what IS it?! (Tell me it's not a durian, that's even _worse_!)" His fingers dug themselves into his hair. "J-just what kind of horrible curse did that pumpkin put on me?!" His legs tried to push off the ground only to collapse like wet noodles under him, sabotaged as they were by his nerves. He whimpered, rocking his feet. "Oh no…I can't even get up now! My legs…they're melting!"

Llyra stared down at him looking almost bored. He gazed up wide-eyed at her casual expression.

"H-how…how are you immune to the curse?!"

She sighed. "Colin…I think that was just a _person_ back there."

"Y-you mean it was ONCE was a person! Before it turned into…THAT THING!"

"No." she droned. "I mean that was a person. And this…" she stood up, surveying the hall. "…is probably—"

"—the passageway of death and decay leading into the underworld from whence we can never return!" Colin gasped as though he'd memorized it right out of a book.

"…I was gonna say," Llyra scrunched her nose. "A really humid underground passageway inside the school that reeks like week-old trash." She fanned her face with a scowl. What did they dump down here, all the cafeteria leftovers?

"…week-old trash?!" he clasped his head. "In this setting, that probably means c-corpses! Look around Llyra, look at where we are!"

His finger flung up to present her the comforting amenities of their current locale—a four way intersection, leading off into darkness in every direction. The candelabras in the walls reflected onto the moist, black stone securing the walls, which extended high into a ceiling she couldn't see. As the sound of water dripping high above them somewhere trickled into her ears, a subtle sense of dread tickled her throat—but she swallowed it almost immediately.

Colin was pacing in front of her. "This is a _labyrinth!_ It's probably full of all kinds of deadly traps and tricky doomsday devices and and monsters like…wallmasters!" He dropped to his knees. "We're doomed Llyra …doomed!"

Llyra thumped a hand lightly into the top of his head. He shrieked, but she held his head fast, as though to steady it.

"Or…" she crouched in with firm eyes as he blinked up at her, "…you're blindsided with paranoia right now, and this is a perfectly normal secret passageway within the school."

 **"MU-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!"** A deep laugh suddenly rang out from the darkness, echoing off the halls and goading them both into an antsy hop.

Colin latched onto her arm. "Oh yeah? Normal passageway, huh? Then how do you explain THAT?!" He swallowed. "It was a witch, wasn't it? A really, really EVIL witch that's going to curse us!"

Llyra scowled. She had more than enough experience waking up from the laughter of a jack-in-the-box stuffed beneath her pillow to know that most such creepy voices were the the workings of a prankster.

"Please," Llyra twirled a finger around her hair. "don't tell me you're seriously falling for that. I bet it was just some mischievous little imp trying to scare us…besides, that laugh was pathetic!" Her lips cracked themselves wide with mischief. "…you wanna hear what a _real_ evil laugh sounds like?"

Colin opened his mouth to inform her that he didn't, but she'd already sucked in a breath so deep, he wondered at how the sconces along the hall didn't get blown out. **"MUUU-AAAAAAAA-HAAAAAA-HAAAAAAA-HAAAAAAAA-HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"** Her voice roared down the hall. "TOP THAT YOU LITTLE IMP!"

Colin gaped at her as though she'd just fired a bomb from her mouth. "…are you _trying_ to provoke it?!" He stared down the hall saucer-eyed, as though expecting the fire breath of a dragon to come scorching back at them.

The hall, however, remained silent.

Llyra crossed her arms, a hint of smugness in her cheeks. "See? And that's how it's done. I scared it off!"

Colin rubbed his shoulders, burrowing his head into his neck like a turtle. "OR, it's skulking towards us now in the shadows, preparing for an ambush!" A rat scurried passed his foot and he mimicked its squeak.

Llyra rolled her eyes. "Let's get going scaredy pants." She advanced a few steps forward before Colin latched himself like a Gel to her arm.

"NO!" He squeezed her elbow. "Th-think of the traps Llyra! Th-this place is probably brimming with rolling spikes and boulders and closing walls around every corner!" His eyes darted around, anchoring at the corner of a perpendicular corridor leading out of sight twenty feet or so ahead. He raised a trembling finger and pointed to where a lone green rupee lay gleaming up from the floor by its wall. "Y-you see that?! R-right there! That's got to be a Rupee Like!"

"…it's just a rupee, Colin."

"No, it's a monster in disguise, waiting to consume us!"

"…you have it backwards. A certain type of monster goes around consuming poor, defenseless rupees, not the other way around."

"Defenseless?!" He let go of her arm to smack in his own cheeks. "B-but that's just what the Rupee Like wants you to think! And then, as you approach with your guard down…just as soon as you reach out your hand—BAM! The mucky goo lashes out to chomp on your arm…and then your head…and then your shoulders…and then…"

In the midst of his monologue, Llyra had wandered around the sinister corner in question.

"Hey...Colin."

His stricken face looked up in time to have the green rupee flung at his head.

She put her hands on her hips. "Your Rupee Like… _terrifying,_ isn't it?"

He frowned down at the rupee, fiddling with it as though to ascertain it were real. Finally, he pocketed it and traipsed after her around the corner, eyebrows pulled low over his eyes. "…I still think coming down here was a bad idea…"

"Sshhh…!" Llyra held a finger to her lips, eying where the path forked up ahead. "…do you hear that?"

They honed their ears, listening to the vague echoes along the corridor. Between the faint sound of dripping water and an occasional creaking, the distinct whisperings of a voice stood out. It seemed to beckon from a close distance somewhere around the corner.

Llyra's brows rose with intrigue. "…is that… _chanting_?"

Colin gulped, huddling in closer to her. "…the chants of a witch!"

She scowled. "…you wanna bet on that? If you're wrong you have to buy me a horse this time."

"…and if I'm right?"

"I'll get you a cape that'll make you jump higher."

He swallowed. "I'm not sure that'll help me if I'm dead…"

Llyra rolled her eyes, clasped his wrist, and pulled him around the dinforsaken corner. They halted where the path widened into a spacious hall, embellished by an array of indecipherable carvings along the wall that looked like they belonged in a museum. The area would've been of little interest to their monster hunting eyes, were it not for the lone cloaked figure inhabiting the far corner. She was huddled into a ball beneath an engraving of the Triforce, hands wrapped around quivering knees. A hood obscured her face, but they could see her lips moving at a hurried pace, from which an unintelligible whispering tumbled out like a frantic hum.

Llyra elbowed Colin. "…it's just a girl, see?"

He trembled. "B-but she could be a witch!"

"Colin," Llyra sighed, "Do you just think _every_ girl you meet is a witch?" She frowned, watching the girl's shoulders tremble.

Upon stepping closer, she was able to decipher the girl's whimpered prayer. _"…may the goddesses be merciful upon my head and deliver all evils from within close bounds, may the goddesses be just and recognize that I may be deserving of such aid, may the goddesses be swift to punish and omit me of further misery…"_

"The poor girl's practically crying," Llyra whispered, "how about checking to see if she's okay, mister legendary knight?"

"Y-you're right…" He swallowed hard, like there was a toad stuck in his throat, and followed this with a smack to the cheeks. "…alright Colin," he whispered under his breath, "you can do this!"

Llyra watched with a snort as he marched ever so nobly towards the girl. Only a few valorous steps in however, the girl shrieked like she were being approached by a bear, and all three of them flinched at once.

"S-STAY AWAY!" She clutched her hood with trembling hands and inched back.

Llyra whistled and heightened her brows. "Wow Colin, she's an even bigger scaredy cat than you are!" She cast her eyes to the flustered girl in the hood. "Don't worry, he might be weird but he's not that scary!"

Colin scowled. "Speak for yourself!" His foot slid forward to approach her again, but still she backed away.

"I SAID DON'T—"

 _Fwoosh._

The girl's protest was precluded as a long tongue lashed out from beneath her hood and coiled itself around Colin's boot.

Colin froze, half because his foot had been ensnared, and half because his brain hadn't fully comprehended why yet.

Llyra's eyes had opened wide on the tongue, and a drop of sweat trickled down her brow as a familiar knot wound its way in her stomach. _'…Ghini tongues are so wickedly long that they can reach all the way across the great sea…'_ taunted a voice she hadn't heard in a long time, raspy in her head as it'd been on that halloween years ago. _'…they'll strangle you and squeeze out your organs as a delicacy for them to feast upon…'_ she swallowed. It couldn't really be, this couldn't be…the tongue of a Ghini?!

"LLYRA!"

Colin shrieked as the tongue reeled in his foot, snapping her from her stupor. She lunged and caught hold of both Colin's hands, a snarl in her throat as her feet anchored themselves into the floor. "OH NO YOU DON'T!"

 **"HhAA-HA-hAA-HA-HaA-HA-HAa-HA-HAAAaaaaaAAAA!"**

Llyra winced as that same cackle from earlier emanated much louder from the shadowy depths of the girl's hood. **"I sSsSsSMELLED THE DEeeeLICIOUS TASsssTE OF CORDUuuROY ssSHOES CLOSeeEBY…"**

Llyra gritted her teeth. "…so…it was _you_ , was it?"

Colin's face was turning blue from being stretched like taffy, and he craned sideways towards her with a grimace as she yanked on his hands.

"Llyra… he gasped, "…If I become ghini food, it's all your fault you got that! I told you this place was bad news!"

"S-s-s-sorry…I'm s-s-s-sorry…" a high pitched stammer came from the girl beneath the hood. "…I tried to warn you…" She whimpered and resumed muttering her frantic prayers.

 **"WwHAttsSSSs WrrrONggGGG BoOYyyyy…"** jeered the voice in the hood. **"….LETTTttt mE DEvouRRR ThaTT DEEeeLICIouusssSSS COoooRDUROY…"**

Llyra bit back her rising apprehension and dug her heels deeper into the ground. Like heck she was gonna let some bundle of creep she couldn't even see get the better of her! She glared into the talking hood. "Hey, listen you STUPID GHINI!" she gnarled like she were schooling a nasty child. "YOU BETTER LET GO OF HIM IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU!"

Colin's suspended head nodded itself profusely in the air. "W-what she said!"

"After all…" Llyra tightened her grip, "…he's full of all kinds of poisonous junk like chickaloo treenut butter! If you eat him, you'll just be puking all that toxic garbage he's made of back out!"

"Yeah…!" he frowned. "…hey, wait!"

 **"HA-HhA-HAHAaaAAaaaAAA!"** scorned the ghini. **"FfffooOOOool, I'M NOtttt INTEREeesSSSsssTED IN HISs FFFffffilTHYyy LOw CLAssSSS HUUuuMAAn oOOOorganNNNSsSS!**

Llyra's brow creased. "…you're not?"

 **"CErrrrRTAINLY NOttT! I CRAaaAVE DELiiICIOousSSS FAaBRIcCSSssS! LIKe THoosSSe CORDuroYyy SHoeSss…MmMmMmmMMmmmm…SO MuCH BeTTERrr THANn THoSe BOooRING OLdd gIBDoo BaNDaGEessss MMyyY BRotHerssSSs GivE meEe to LiicCK aLL DaAY!"**

"WHAT?!" Llyra's jaw plummeted down. "You…you don't eat organs, but FABRIC?!" Suddenly, the giggling smirks of those masked monsters from halloween way back when flashed through her mind, and her face flushed a deep red. "UGH!" she smacked her forehead. "Those little…they LIED!"

"LLYRA!" Colin's face had paled the moment she'd let go one of her hands, and he ratcheted forward. "HELLO!"

Llyra dove and caught hold of the hand she'd lost again, but not before they'd slipped a few feet closer to the shadowy hood. Meantime, the girl's praying seemed to increase the closer they drew.

Llyra squinted into the blackness, trying to picture the Ghini's giant ugly eye staring out at her. "Listen you fashion-backwards shoe-loving freak!" she barked, "if you don't release him, I'll rip your tongue off and feed it to a molduga, you hear?!"

 **"HHhhhhHA-HaHA-HahAa-HAhHAAaaA!"** cackled the Ghini. **"ANd JUssST HhoowWWww aRE YoU GOInG TO do tHAt YYYoouU uGLy LITTLLee ShRimMPPp? MmMMMYyyyy tONgue hhaAasS aBbsooOOrbED THe bbBaCTeriaaAA FFrOm LLICckiNg tHOouuSSSssandSS OF CLotH mMMmatERialsSSSss, maAKinG IT ddDDeaDLy TO inNNNnggessSSSst…a mMMEre mmMMOLDuuGA WoULD ssuuRRRreLYY mmeEEEeeT itsSSSSs unNNNNtimELy DEEeemiSSseEEeee…"**

"AAAAAAIIIII!" The girl in the hood let out a sudden high pitched squeal, yanking on her hood. "T-t-too much informationnn" she gasped, "This…this…UNSANITARY HORROR FROM THE UNDERWORLD is wreaking its CALAMITOUS GERMS UPON MY HEAD! S-SOMEBODY GET IT OFF!"

"I'd love to help you…" Llyra growled at her, "…if I didn't already HAVE MY HANDS FULL!" She scowled at Colin's head dangling in the air. Where was any decent help when you needed it?!

"I should've worn my ripped up canvas sneakers!" Colin whined. "No monster would've gone for that, right?"

 **"…IN…THE UNDERWORLD…YOU'RE…MUCUS…IS…HONORABLE…"** An unexpected response came at him from their left in a yet familiar feminine voice.

"…what?"

Colin had barely raised his head before something of substantial weight came barreling into the tongue like a projectile into a slingshot—it came with a force strong enough that the tongue snapped off of Colin's boot, sending him crashing along with his dumbstruck ally into the ground.

When the two had climbed off the floor, they found a familiar mostly headless bot flashing its eyes as it lumbered around in a rickety circle.

"CHERRY?!" Llyra and Colin both shouted at once.

Llyra blinked, staring at what had earlier been the root of her problems. "…did she…just save us?" She nudged Colin. "See that…she _didn't_ combust! Maybe she's not that broken after all!"

Cherry's head jolted on its side. **"…MESSENGERS OF…UNDERWORLD…LIKE…DRESSING…IN…BEE LARVA…"**

Colin sighed. Llyra smacked her forehead. "…nevermind, she's broken."

Behind her, the girl in the hood had collapsed to the floor beneath the ghini's tongue, which floated like an underwater ribbon over her head. Colin and Llyra both shifted into a defensive stance, but the tongue seemed to have lost interest in Colin's boot. Instead, it pointed itself like a giant finger at Cherry's hat-covered, sideways-lolling head. **"I DOo NoT dREESssssS In MEeERE ComMMONeeR'S BeE LAaaRVA,"** the ghini bellowed, sounding almost offended. **"I DRESsssSS INn eeLITEeeeEE HOooRNET LARVaaAE, HooOW DAAAaaaAAReE YOoU INSssINNNnnNUATE THHhhaaAT I HAaaVE THE TaaASTESsssSSS OF A MEeeRE PEeeONNnnNNN…"**

Cherry's eyes flickered. **"…YOU…GHOSTS…EAT…BOKO UNDERWEAR…"**

The tongue wagged itself above the robot's neck. **"…DDoNN'TTT insSSSSSssULT MMeeee…onNNNLLy PLeeeEEEeebIAN PPOOessSSs eaTTT BOKOobLIN uNnnDerrwWeEARR…wWWweEe GHInnNIsssSSSs eATTT nNNnoTHINngGg LEeeESSSssss THAAannN ThEe DeELICcacyYYYyy Of AAEeeeRRALFfosSSsss CHhhhaaiNMAaILL…"**

Colin and Llyra gaped, mouths hanging like phones left dangling from their cords, at this intellectual exchange between robot and hoody monster.

Llyra leaned in. "Uh…what's happening? Are they…arguing?" She creased her brow. "…about… _clothes?"_

Colin blinked his eyes and rubbed his cheeks. "…this is the strangest thing I've seen all day."

The tongue circled overhead the flashing bot like a hawk. **"…YyYYYYouUU iNNNssSSssoLENT rRRRrroBOTT ssSSSsscCCumMmm, yOUuuUuu CLeeEaAaRLYy LAckKKk THe rRRrreFINneDD TAaSTEessSSs TOo APReEccCIaTE THe CULLTuRReeD CLAaSseSSs oF FFAABBbricccCCc!"** It slithered down to Cherry's head and licked the green pointy hat still stuffed over it. **"SSSssaAAAAaay…"** it purred, **"THisssSSs AaakKKkaaaLLLAA CoOTTTonNNnnn ISs PReTTy GoOodDdD…hEh-Heh-heH-hEH-HEh-HeH…MAaayYBe yOu gOT ssSSsoMMe GoOOOooooD TasSSStessSSss AFTteerR aLLL rROBooTtt…"**

The tongue wound itself like a snake around the fine fabric hat, squeezing in Cherry's head. Beneath its vice-grip, Cherry idled about as defensively as an owl statue, much to the chagrin of the onlookers.

"NO!" Llyra shrieked, "YOU CAN'T EAT—"

"—NOT THE LINK HAT!" Colin charged passed her like a helmasaur.

She scowled. "The problem is Cherry, Colin!"

But he was honed in on the hat. The moment the bot was lurched forwards by the tongue, he lunged in like a seasoned brawler and dug his hands like claws into the tongue. Llyra gaped at the mighty Goron heave of his hands and the transformed concentration on his face. She smacked her forehead. Seriously, he gets his courage NOW, in the name of saving that dinforsaken hat?! Where was this daredevil at during the important times?

Colin whirled his suddenly fierce countenance on her. "Don't just stand there, help me!"

She sighed and scooted in behind him, sinking her hands into the slimy tongue as she winced at its soggy texture. "Okay…remind me again, why we're here playing tug-o-war with a Ghini's tongue?"

They lugged together on the line, but still their feet still slid in towards the girl's shadowy hood.

Colin craned his neck towards Cherry at their backs. Her head was totally obscured by the coiled tongue, but he howled at her anyway. "DO SOMETHING CHERRY WOULD YOU?! DON'T YOU HAVE LIKE TEN ARMS?!"

 **"…T-T-TOO…MANY…MINIONS OF GANON…IN MY N-N-N-NOSTRILS…"** her muffled voice droned beneath the double swathe of hat and tongue.

Llyra scoffed at him. "She's busted Colin!"

A moan came from the girl under the hood. "I…I'm sssssoooo sorrry!" She dropped to her knees. "Th-this is all because I got c-cursed by that w-witch…"

At the mention of a witch, Llyra's ear twitched and a bolt of electric blue lightning shot through her spine, straightening it like an arrow. She snapped attention to the girl huddled on the floor. "…witch?! What witch?! WHERE?!"

The girl offered no answer amidst her busy prayers, but the voice of a foreign soprano rang out from the darkness high above their heads.

"KIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIIIIIIII! I'VE FOUND YOU, YOU DEMON ROBOT!"

"WAH?!"Llyra snapped her head in the direction of the voice, but could make nothing out from the overhanging void.

Finally, a green light flared to life like the distant glow of a star. Llyra stared at it, unable to register what it was—until she heard the incantation.

 **"M-A-Y ~ T-H-I-S ~ M-O-N-S-T-R-O-U-S ~ F-R-I-G-H-T ~ J-O-I-N ~ T-H-E ~ F-A-L-L-E-N ~ T-O-N-I-G-H-T-! ~ S-H-A-L-L-A-B-A-Z-O-O-!"**

The green star shot towards Llyra who shrieked, abandoning her siege upon the tongue with a graceless dodge.

 _Fwoosh._

She heard the blast make contact with something behind her, but wasn't so concerned with what it was until she'd gyrated around.

Before her eyes, a green light storm sizzled like a firework show, at the heart of which was the convulsing metal chunk that had once been called Cherry—Llyra shrieked as she realized the already ramshackle robot had received a direct hit from the unidentified spell. Her jumbled hunk of gears and shafts was quaking and shooting colored sparks at them like drops of water popping from a frying pan. **"….G-G-G-GONNA NUKE THE SCHOOL…"** the bot sputtered, **"…G-G-GANON…GONNA N-N-NUKE THE SCHOOL…"**

With eyes round as boes, Llyra and Colin both stared as her figure started to deform. The head reattached itself to her neck, and the green hat which covered her face darkened into a charcoal gray pointed hood, inside which the face of a skull appeared, inset with glowing crimson beads for eyes. The metal of her body blackened with the shroud of a charcoal cloak, and her metal claws became haggard, bandaged hands, wielding a mutating pole that heightened and sharpened until it had become a scythe, gleaming like a guillotine at double their heights. _'…they've got red eyes that glare at you out from the face of a skull, and they float around in smoky gray cloaks like phantoms…'_ the voices echoed back through Llyra's pounding head, _'…they carry giant death scythes that can slice through anything like goat butter…even slice open holes into the underworld…'_

The reborn ex-robot in its hovering cloak was rising steadily off the floor like a rocket, its chant deepening into a baritone, throaty growl. **"…GANON…GONNA NUKE THE SCHOoL…gANoN GoNnA nUkE tHe sChOoL…GaNoN gOnNa NuKe ThE sChOoL!"**

Across from the dumbstruck eyes of the duo, the girl in the hood screamed. "A REAPLING! IT'S A REAPLING OH MY HEAVENS WE'VE MET OUR ENDS!"

 _'…a Reapling is a bad omen…'_ reprised the jeering voices in Llyra's head, _'…seeing one means a calamity is coming for you…the moment you lay eyes on a Reapling is the moment you're doomed…'_

Llyra let out a derisive snort. Like she needed a Reapling's prophecy to tell her she was in for hell!

 **"MuHahA** ** **HahA**** ** ** **HahA****** ** ** ** **H******** ** ** ** ** **A********** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **Aa******************** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **A****************************** ** ** ** ** **aAa********** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **Aa******************** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **Aa****************************!"** the monster cackled above their heads. It soared off into the darkness, abandoning its admiring gawkers upon the floor. As Llyra stared after it, still in the midst of absorbing what had just happened, Colin latched onto her arm.

"Llyra!" he gasped, wobbling on his feet, (Llyra rolled her eyes, seeing his spurt of boldness from earlier had disappeared along with the Link hat) "D-did Cherry just turn into a…a Reapling? Did that just happen or am I losing my mind?"

Llyra frowned. "Look, I'm as lost as you, alright?"

He squeezed her arm. "…b-but that means…there's a…up there it's gotta be a…a…" his eyes were trained on the spot from which the spell had been shot.

A voice rung out from that direction. "GET BACK HERE! I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU!" It was unmistakably the same voice that had incanted the spell.

As Llyra squinted up into the darkness, she glimpsed something charging down from the air—not a beam or a light this time, but a spry pair of legs, which landed in a squat upon the ground in front of her only a few feet away. Llyra gazed from the girl's flowing cape as it cascaded down over her, to the large, pointy brimmed hat lowered over her face, which concealed everything but a smirk. She tried to swallow the frog in her throat as the girl stood up.

There before Llyra were the gleaming eyes of a young witch.

o | O | o

* * *

 **NEXT ::** Chapter 07—The Pumpkin, The Ghini, and The Witch (Part II/II)

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

Lots of things about this chapter had me banging in my head, I'll start with the length. This chapter actually started out quite short. Then…I added the flashback. It seemed fine in the initial outline, but then it kept lengthening as I fleshed it out, way more than I anticipated (I kept looking at the rising word count going 'oh no...not again!') Anyway, I realize the flashback is quite long and takes up most of the chapter, but I think it adds a lot of context to the present (Plus it's got this wind-waker-meets-majora's-mask vibe I thought was neat).

The opening scene is actually more the type of scene I'm inclined to normally write because I like character tensions, and there'd be more of it if I wasn't trying so hard to write a comedy here. I'm a bit concerned actually with how the flashback messes with the comedic tone of the story, and I hope I managed to keep it comedic enough that it's not out of place. Trying to strike the right balance was a real challenge.

In general, the flashback was a precarious scene to write. So many issues! But let's address one of the main ones. There's a hint of suggestiveness I was trying to weed out because it's not meant to be there. The featured characters are ten and no one's hit puberty, so it's not meant as a factor. I think I mitigated it decently, but there's some remnants left as a side effect of the tension and Link's personality, and I don't see how I can cut more without losing the tension too. I tried diffusing the tension down and it basically ruined the scene, so I put some of it back anyway. Hopefully I at least did a decent job of balancing it out. The scene is supposed to give more the effect of a group of mischievous and rambunctious little rascals joking around in their costumes on halloween, just that from Aryll's perspective they're not little since she's shorter than them. Another thing, concerning Link's behavior in case it's unclear. I just want to clarify that while Link may mess around, he wouldn't put Aryll in a situation he deems dangerous. Link is pretty lax here because he's got everyone under his thumb and the situation under control, so Aryll isn't really in any danger though she may feel overwhelmed. The age is important here too because hormones aren't a concern. By comparison had they been say age 13, the context would be different and this scene wouldn't play out because Link's protective instincts would've snapped the limbs off anyone who went within 3 feet of her.

Link's role is interesting. He's well intended, but it's kind of obscured behind his being mischievous and domineering, which leans him towards being antagonistic at times. I wanted to establish a sense of what their sibling rivalry would've been like before Link ditched home (well at least for Aryll it's a rivalry. She sees it as this huge battle whereas Link is mostly just messing around scaring her a bit…though at the same time he's trying not to scare her _too_ much, but just enough that she wouldn't want to go off battling monsters. That his intentions backfire is the irony here.) I wanted to show a glimpse into some of the pressures Link inadvertently placed on Aryll during her childhood that formed the core of her insecurities and led to the development of her reckless tendencies.

That said, Link took up more of this chapter than he should, so he's being kicked back off stage. Goodbye! It's back to our good old NPCs, and no more flashbacks for a while.

I'm still working on the next chapter, but it should be significantly shorter or I will flip a table.

Comments welcome as always!

/~/ Farosie


	7. The Pumpkin The Ghini & The Witch (II)

_*Note from author: A long chapter after too long a time. This here was a troublesome chapter...very troublesome, but I hope you'll enjoy nonetheless.  
_

 _._

 **Ch 07—The Pumpkin, The Ghini, and The Witch (Part II/III)**  
 **-:-:-{** Vol 01— The Knightly Way Thoust Finds an Assembly **}-:-:-**

* * *

In the many nights leading up to her debut day at the academy, it was on more than one occasion that Aryll had found herself standing across from a witch—or at least the ones in her nightmarish dreams. The witch always looked different in each dream; in one, she was as tall as a lighthouse, and her giant foot came down like a black tidal wave to swallow little Aryll up. In another, an inky eyeball stared chillingly out at Aryll from the witch's forehead. When the eyeball blinked, monsters shrouded by an entourage of undead bees materialized out from the eye to play tag with her. In a third, the Witch's pointy hat crackled with static as it absorbed rampant bolts of lightning from a deafening thunderstorm overhead, and once charged on enough power to electrocute a big octo, it would rush at Aryll like a helmasaur. Though the witch's appearance and mode of attack varied in each one, there was in all Aryll's dreams one particular unfortunate consistency: That Guy, always flying through the rushroom purple sky in his black vampire cape, the echo of his laughter haunting the air above the witch's head. Each time the witch sent Aryll stumbling down to the warping, distorting ground, he'd descend like a death god and land on a pedestal that was conveniently always there in front of Aryll, from which he could tower over her at quadruple the height and boom down, "… _you, Ary, would get wrecked faster than a skullkid could scream…"_ And her last moments in the dream would end with him logically shooting pink laser beams at her out his eyes, leaving her to wake up in bed with a high shriek and a sweaty forehead.

These dreams, Aryll knew, were the mischievous tricks of her insecurities—ones she'd determined to finally be rid of upon coming to the Academy. Surely, once she were sent out on assignments to fight monsters and witches and darknuts and the whole shebang, those anxious nightmares would back off with their tails between their legs.

Still, though she'd mentally prepared herself for the advent of such an encounter, she hadn't been expecting to duke it out with a witch on the morning of her very first day.

Llyra's brow trickled with sweat as she stared down her opponent, trying to size up every imminent danger lurking in her aqua cloak. A demon spike beneath her sapphire pointed hat? Undead bees in her cobalt sleeves? Fire beams in her red eyes, and electricity in her even redder hair? Llyra's feet trembled lightly as That Guy's voice came rumbling back into her head. "… _their skin is paler than the bandages on a gibdo under the full moon, and just beneath their skin...poison mites crawl over their bones, waiting for the chance to burst forth and sting the unlucky fool who steps too close…"_ She shook her head to get his ghoulish voice out of it, like trying to shake off a ghoul rat. This was no time to be getting in a cold sweat! Hadn't she been awaiting a chance like this to prove herself all this time? This was it, her first defining moment as a knight—a showdown against a real witch! Finally, That Guy and his cronies since forever ago would be made to eat their words!

With one eye trained on the young witch's smirk, her hand reached back for her piggy bag, to unsheathe her mighty weapon of choice—and then she froze. Her telescope, just when she needed it most—Colin had confiscated it! She swore beneath her breath, whirling her eyes to berate her weapon's captor, only to find him in the midst of leaping behind her.

"L-Llyra…!" he whimpered. "L-let's get out of here! B-before she curses us…or summons monsters…or she…she…" his voice softened to a whinny.

Llyra gritted her teeth. _Colin, you moron!_ She shielded his trembling form with a defensive crouch in. _You don't show weakness to an opponent like this!_ She fixed the witch with a dogged glare, boss battle music playing in her head. "Who are you?!"

The girl gave a high pitched laugh, as though she'd been asked why she wasn't wearing a serpent's toga. "…who am I?" She set her blue gloved hands to her hips. "…why, I am none other than the one, the only—"

"—IRIS!" A voice shouted at the witch's back.

"Huh—?" The witch craned her body around in time to have someone collide into it from the back. Two shrieks and a THUD later, the mighty witch had been downgraded into a pile of limbs on the floor, tangled with the figure of that very same pumpkin head that had greeted Llyra upon her tumbled entrance down the shaft. The more Llyra stared, the less the tangled heads looked like figures from her nightmares, and the more they looked like vegetable stew. Their pile of helpless, skinny, knotted limbs reminded Llyra suddenly of the stack of poor chicken bones That Guy had licked clean and spat from his mouth after slow roasting a dozen ostriches for his humble portion of thanksgiving one year. She could feel her intimidation melting into a puddle in the middle of the pile, as the battle music fizzed out in her head, and the sinister organ playing veered out of tune. Colin seemed to sense this gradual shift in the atmosphere too, emerging from behind Llyra to stare at the pile in cautious bewilderment.

"AARRRGGHHH!" the witch screeched at the pumpkin head. "You're sitting on my hat, Phoney! Don't you know how many spells it took to get the color to just the right shade of Lanayru Tonal Sapphire Blue?!"

"S-s-s-sorry…" the pumpkin head whimpered, scuttling up from the floor, feeling at her coarse, round head. "…I-I'm s-still adj-j-j-justing to h-having a h-head full of p-pulp…"

"Well adjust faster!" The witch drew herself up from the floor and straightened her crinkled hat, exhaling in relief as though a paper cut in it would've caused it to combust like a baby dodongo. "Thank the mages guild it's undamaged…"

If Llyra hadn't found herself in a speechless stupor at the girl's distinctly un-witch-like behavior, she would've leaned in to tell Colin he'd found a buddy to start a pointy-hat preservation club with. It was a good thing she didn't though, because a certain infamous tongue suddenly lashed through the space between their shoulders—it made to seize for the witch's hat, but the witch dodged deftly aside.

" **He-hE-he-hE-HE-He-hE-he-** ** **He-hE-he** "** rumbled the voice of the ghini at their backs, " **tHhhat hAt issSsSs mAaaaade of HhytoOoOopiAnn SsSsiLlLk, isnnNn't ittTtT… tha'tsSsSsss mmMmy faVorittTteeee…."**

"Hytopian Silk?!" The witch shrieked in indignance, like she'd been told she stunk of moldy milk, "I think _not!_ This—" she rubbed her hat like it were the fur of a loyal familiar, "—is exquisite lace, spun from the ultra fine silk of skulltulas! Nearly unbreakable stuff, not to mention _way_ smoother than those so-called smoother-than-silk stones those merchants try to sell you on the streets of the Dark World…"

As she stood there with her mouth flapping, the ghini tongue snatched the hat off her head and retracted like a yo-yo with it into the shadowy abode beneath the hood of its fretful host. The witch didn't seem to notice however, absorbed as she was in her monologue. "…I had to _labor_ for this hat! Yep! It cost me six months of babysitting gohma nests to afford getting the skulltula threads I needed for it, and then I swore I'd swallow a force fairy if I ever lost it—"

"— **IttTtT tasSstes worsSsSseee thanNnNn rrooassSsSsted gouUuurRrmet fileeEeeet mignoOonnNnn…"** the ghini's voice interrupted, convulsing with apparent nausea.

The witch cackled, patting her hatless head. "You're just jealous that you've never experienced a hat of such high caliber that not even royalty dares to wear it…a fine texture that could only have been woven by spiders passionate about their weaving skills…a silk so sleek that you almost want to bite into it—" (As her hand patted her hair, the realization of what wasn't there seemed to slowly dawn in her eyes. "…huh? Where did it—")

The ghini spat the hat back out mid sentence, sacking the witch in the face with it forcefully enough that Llyra's big-boss witch was toppled against the wall, where she deflated to the floor in a clumsy heap, looking defeated as a dodongo after swallowing a bomb.

Llyra's eye twitched as she spectated the whole farce. This…this moronic bag of hat-obsessed flesh was a…a witch? Where was the demon spike?! Where were the monsters at her beck and call? The poison termites that shot out if someone got too close? Where was her overwhelming sinister aura? Where, even, was her wand?! Llyra's entire vision of a witch as she'd known it for years was crumbling like stalnox into a pile of bones! That Guy's smirking face suddenly flashed though her head, and Llyra reddened like a tomato. Just how many things had he made up during her childhood for his own amusement?! What else had she gotten wrong, did pigs fly too? Santa was real? The moon was secretly an evil being bent on consuming the world? No thanks to him, her perception was totally skewed!

She groaned, glancing over to her left in hopes that Colin could restore some of her draining sanity (she shook her head, thinking it was a low moment for her indeed when _Colin_ was the saner one between them). She found him staring at the witch in a kind of distant stupor, not unlike her own. Perhaps his own vision of a witch had combusted in the same fashion as hers…?

"C-colin…hey Colin…" She nudged him, stirring him out of his dazed thoughts.

He turned his distracted gaze on her. "…what…what is it?"

"Tell me _all_ witches aren't like…" she gestured to their subject. "…that?!"

He blinked at her as though he were still half-submerged in a dream himself. "How am I supposed to know?!"

"Well, you ran into a witch this morning, didn't you? The one that hexed your map…" she creased her brow. "…wait…was _she_ the one you saw?"

He frowned. "…actually…no. The one I ran into had a dark indigo hat. Hers is bright blue, see?"

"But…what if she magicked her hat a different color?"

"…I doubt that. And besides, her face is totally different too."

"But what if she magicked her face too?"

Colin creased his brow at her. "Llyra, are you losing it? That's definitely not her!" he rubbed his neck. "Anyway, the other witch was _scary!_ She started shouting at me like I'd run her over with a demon train!"

Llyra sucked in her cheek. "So then, why's this one so…"

They watched as the girl placed the soggy hat back upon her head, only to have it sink over her eyes.

"…awkward?" Llyra finished.

"Hey, awkward is okay." Colin whispered. "Awkward isn't dangerous…I think."

Llyra raised a brow. "…want me to find out for sure?"

He frowned at her. "…what's that mean?"

She grinned and patted him on the shoulder. "…watch the pro interrogator at work."

He only had a moment to worry what that meant before she turned towards their distant subject, thrust out an accusing finger and boomed, "HEY YOU! …where's your electric spike?!"

Colin smacked his forehead as the girl shot Llyra a blank stare.

"…my…sorry could you repeat that?"

Llyra crossed her arms. "…you heard me! And where are your monster pets?! What kind of self respecting witch doesn't go around terrorizing Hylians with a whole swarm of those at her back?!"

"…uhm," Colin muttered beside her, "…not that we mind if you're that sort of self-respecting witch though…"

The little witch plodded over to them, her soggy hat flapping against her head. "…waitwaitwait…what…" her foot stomped the ground a foot in front of Llyra's squinty eyes. "…TOTAL ignoramus told you that?!" She crossed her arms. "I'll have you know, we witches only terrorize for highly honorable—HEY!"

Llyra had caught her wrist mid-sentence and ripped open her sleeve. Finding them empty as her wallet was after cavorting with rats, she fixed the girl with a judging leer. "…you don't even have undead bees in your sleeves!"

The witch broke her wrist from Llyra's grasp and shuddered. "—why would I, that'd be disgusting!" She crossed her arms. "I'll have you know I keep only Anti-Fairies in my sleeves!" She frowned, rolling her sleeves back up. "Oh right, except for today, since I accidentally let them loose at my cousin's place last night…"

Llyra scoffed and crossed her arms conclusively. "…just as I suspected. You're no witch! You're just a phony!"

Beside her, Colin gave that wince he always did when Llyra's mouth was veering them into dangerous territory. "Uh, she doesn't actually mean what she says—"

"—say WHAT?!" the girl bit back, ignoring Colin's attempt at dispersing the emerging storm clouds. "I am TOO a witch!" She huffed, " _I'm_ Iris the Great!"

Llyra leaned in, a taunting shadow over her nose. "…oh yeah? Well then, where's your witch WAND?! Doesn't look like you've got one now, do you?!"

"HA!" Iris the Great cackled, drawing back (with poor Colin cringing in the background). "I'll show you! Behold, my…" she fumbled about inside her cape for a few moments, tossing out random things (which clearly did not proportionally fit her jacket interior) and with a dramatic pause followed by a great flourish of her hand, finally flung out her arm. "…IN-credible magic wand!"

Llyra's eyes widened. There in Iris's outstretched hand was…absolutely nothing.

She squinted. Either the wand was invisible, or it's wielder had truly made one heck of an awkward blunder. Beside her, Colin, who'd taken a step forward, seemed too shocked for words.

Iris stared at her wandless hand, looking doubly as confused as her onlookers (Llyra thought she heard some relieved sighs behind her from the ever-so-quiet pumpkin head and mysterious queen-of-prayers, whom she'd almost forgotten about). Iris blinked. "…huh? …where did it…? …I could've sworn I had… umm…" She shot a sheepish grin at Llyra. "Hey, you don't mind waiting a minute while I look for it, right? I think it's…" She began padding herself, checking everything from her sleeves to her boots to the inside of her slobbery hat, "…it's got to be around here somewhere…"

Llyra couldn't help the snort that flew out her nose. Here she was, all braced to encounter every manner of person more adroit than herself at this school—and yet here before her was a candidate for greater mess-maker than even she was herself!

The mess-of-a-girl in the sopping blue hat went on muttering to herself, "…I can't believe I lost my cousin's…I mean, my wand! And…" she gasped. "…oh no, my magical boomerang is missing too?! Where is it?!" She cast her eyes around in a frenzy. "Where'd it go…?"

As The Great Witch Iris proceeded with whining about her missing artifacts, Llyra nudged her partner. "Okay Colin, it's official…there isn't an ounce of ' _scary witch'_ in her. So we can stop worrying and…"

She turned to her silent comrade to find him staring wide eyed at Iris, rooted to his spot like she were an incarnation of Ganon. Llyra frowned. "…Colin? Colin?" she nudged him again, but he remained speechless. "…Din's Earth to Colin, are you okay? I know she's a shocking embarrassment to witches everywhere, but you're overdoing it." She frowned, staring into his glazed eyes. What was he doing, trying to master the art of sleeping with his eyes open? She nudged him, but to her complete surprise, upon her light prod, he toppled over like a bowling pin, his face a waxy countenance of frozen appall.

Llyra's jaw dropped. "Colin?!" Her eyes jumped from the frozen shock on his face to an out-of-place something she noticed inches from the sole of his shoe—a strange wooden object, shaped like a wide, concave V, with a red jewel at its center. She frowned, leaning down to pick it up.

"OH!" Iris's voice interrupted her, "…THERE it is!" Before Llyra's fingers made contact with the gadget, the witch swooped passed her like a takkuri and picked it up. "Ahhhh, my magical boomerang!" She rubbed her cheek to it like it were a cherished lost kitty, then flicked her head back to Llyra. "Oh...Good thing you didn't touch it, it's bewitched to stun anyone who comes in contact with it other than yours truly! (Or at least it does when it's working properly…)" Her eyes fell on Colin, laying motionless on the floor. "…huh? What happened to him? Is he playing dead?"

Llyra scowled at her, eying the boomerang. "What do you _think_ happened to him?!" She narrowed her eyes. This couldn't have been the witch's plan all along—to stun Colin whilst seeming like a dimwit…she stared back at Iris the Great, still rubbing the boomerang to her cheek, and frowned. Naaah.

Llyra prodded Colin with her foot. "…Your boomerang stuns on immediate contact? How does that make any sense at all?"

The witch shrugged. "Don't ask me, I didn't design it! I just found it in a chest in the Village of Outcasts one time!"

Llyra frowned, leaning over Colin's statue-like gawk. She flicked his forehead. "So, how does this stun work? …is he conscious?" (If he was, she figured it must be pretty uncomfortable lying on the floor with his hip crushing his elbow like that.…)

Iris shrugged behind her. "…oh, I think it puts him into some dreamlike trance, where everything echoes and moves in a slow motion neon pink and green with some occasional color glitching, clipped walls, unloaded models, out of bounds cameras and missing polygons…though I can't be too sure. If you pinch him, I don't think he'll even feel it. Such is the advanced stunning technique of my boomerang!"

Llyra raised a brow. "Riiiight…and how long does the stun last, exactly?"

The witch cocked her head. "Well I'd say…a few minutes…or a few hours…" she frowned. "…not sure, actually?"

Llyra smacked her forehead. There was no way she was gonna drag Colin around like a wax sculpture for the next few hours from class to class! "We can't leave him like this for that long! He needs to be unstunned…NOW!"

Iris waved her hand dismissively. "Not to worry, not to worry. Lucky for him, I'm an expert at handling this sort of thing!" She tapped a finger to her chin. "Yes…he should get immediately un-stunned if he takes some enemy damage."

Llyra leered at the expert witch. "What do you mean…enemy damage?"

The witch beamed. "For example…" She sauntered over to where the girl in the hood stood still reciting her prayers a ways off (Llyra wondered what was going on in her head, and how she could stand to keep praying for so long) and there she craned her head at the dark space in the hood. "Hey little Ghini, can you help a great witch out and smack this poor fool on the floor here out of his paralysis?" She prodded Colin, still helplessly frozen on the floor, with her foot. "A lick to the face should snap him right to!"

Instantly, Llyra jumped in front of Colin like a human shield. "VETOED!" She blared. "You trying to give him nightmares?!"

" **DDDddamMmnNneed wWwitchHh…"** the ghini suddenly rasped, "… **the tasSstee of yYyyourRre disgusSstinNg hatTt maaade me loOoose my apPpetiteEe…nowWwWw evenNn tthatTt boyySss corrRrrdurrroOoyYy boOottssSsSs looOok like theyrRree made ofFf ReEevvoOoltinGg spongeEe cakEe…nNnowWw LleEeavVve meEe to myyy sSsllumMmbBberRrr sSsoOo thHhat I maAay rresSst mYy aachinNnggg tonNgueEe…"**

The witch frowned and scratched at her head. "Hmm…unwilling to lick, that's a problem…" she padded her pockets again, as she'd been doing earlier. "…if only I could find my wand, this would be no problem at all…" She began producing random trinkets from her sleeves (Llyra wondered how, considering they'd been empty earlier) until she suddenly thrust something heavy into Llyra's hands. "…here, hold this, would you?"

Llyra glanced down to find a bulky red book occupying her arms, fat as any encyclopedia on Hyrulean History at the library; unlike those snoozefests however, it was inscribed with obscure symbols along the border. " _The All-purpose Spellbook_ ," Llyra was able to read between the symbols. Instantly, her brows shot up with curiosity. Could it be, she was holding a real, honest-to-Din, spellbook?

"—A-HA!" the witch exclaimed behind her at long last. "…there's my wand! Can you believe it…it was in my pocket all along! Woopsie daisy!"

Llyra glanced up from the book, expecting to see a sorry excuse piece of crap deku-stick-for-a-wand befitting its owner—and was taken aback at what greeted her instead. Before her eyes was a ritzy scepter befitting a royal, deep ebony like the expensive furniture at the mayor's house, with a red crystal orb at the top, much like a massive carmine pearl…but even more eye-catching was the ornately carved dragon coiling the scepter in a spiral up to its tip, where the dragon's head rested its open jaw upon the orb. The intricate detail in its gold-painted scales looked to rival the sculptures of master artisans you'd find in the grand halls of Hyrule Castle. What captivated her most of all however (she imagined her stare was much like Colin's frozen one on the floor) was the peculiar aura radiating out from it, as though it could open a hole to the sacred realm with a simple flick of the wrist. Were _all_ witch wands…like this?!

Alarmingly, both the pumpkin head and the strange girl in the hood had flinched and backed away from Iris at the appearance of the wand (that wasn't a good sign, Llyra thought) though Iris herself hardly seemed to notice. She tapped the otherworldly scepter absently to her chin, like it were a common tree branch she'd picked off the ground. "Now then…what's a good spell for un-paralysis…" she shook her head. "…ah, can't remember. Oh well, we'll just summon an enemy to do him some light damage, a floormaster or a wizzrobe maybe—" Llyra snapped from her stupor at mention of these less-than-friendly monsters, and—forgetting her thoughts regarding the wand—leapt and snatched it right out of the witch's hands.

"Nuh-uh. No way!" Llyra screwed her eyes at her, gripping the orbed wand defensively. And Colin thought her ideas were bad!

Iris raised a brow. "…but, what about…" she stopped, glancing from the wand in Llyra's hand, to the spellbook in the other. A look of realization dawned over her eye. "…oh, _I_ see how it is. You want to cast the spell yourself, don't you?"

At this ingenious idea, Llyra choked. She, cast a spell?! She, with her success credentials and odds worse than finding a star fragment among the remains of a Lynel, plus her zero magical experience?! If Colin could hear them right now, he was probably praying the way the girl in the hood was behind them that he wasn't about to be combusted into a billion little poison mites! Surely, Llyra coming anywhere near the range of spell casting was a terrible idea….…it was a terrible idea, right? The wand was pulsing in her hand with a surprising lightness to it, warming her fingers with a strange, alluring energy that made her curious all of a sudden as to how wielding it would actually feel.

Iris clapped an arm around her neck. "…alright, you've convinced me! You'll cast the spell! After all…what can go wrong with _me_ guiding you to success, right?!"

Llyra cast the witch a dry look. Though she was quickly warming to the idea of testing out a spell or two, a tagteam between Iris the Great and Llyra the Legendary would surely only increase Colin's odds of being turned into a fire breathing lizalfos—if not literally, then figuratively when he raged at her later for any unpredictable side effects. Llyra shook her head, stepping back from her enthusiastic tutor. "…here's a better idea. How about you save yourself the trouble, and let me figure out how to cast the spell myself."

As Llyra was about to flip open the book, Iris snatched it back with a furious shake of her head. "No, no, no! You can't just CAST the spell! You're skipping the most important step here!"

Llyra pursed her lip. "…I am?"

Iris cleared her throat. "Oh, I'm not surprised you don't know the secret to casting spells. Listen carefully…all great witches know that the success of a spell is dependent on ONE thing."

Llyra raised a brow. "…what, enunciation?"

Iris flung her arm out. "The POSE!"

"…the what?"

"The pose, the pose! When you cast a spell, It's ALL about how you strike your pose!"

"…you're joking—"

"—and not just the final pose itself, but the momentum you build leading up to it!" She launched into a quick, clumsy little pirouette. "Dance momentum! Want me to demonstrate?"

"Not really, no—"

"—Of course you do! I'll need this back for a moment too…" she snatched the wand out of Llyra's hands, and before Llyra could open her mouth to protest, the witch had pushed her halfway across the room until she stood beside the mystery girl busy with her prayers. The two of them were shortly joined by the ever-so-quiet pumpkin head as Iris thrust her over to them, and also…Colin? Llyra raised a brow as she watched the witch prop up Colin like a mannequin and push him over to join their lineup. The witch dusted her hands off and faced her assembled audience with a grin. "…right, now are you lucky lot ready to see my amazing dance poses up close?"

Llyra frowned at mannequin Colin's expression, still frozen in panic. It was like he knew he was about to witness something he'd greatly regret seeing.

"Oh and just so we're clear," Iris went on, "these are MY magical dance moves! Don't steal them!"

"Right…" Llyra drawled, "because surely I'd want to—AGGGH!" She cringed as the witch launched into a hysterical flailing of her arms and legs and charged straight at them with a strangled shriek. The group of them yelped and scattered as she barreled by (or at least Llyra and the pumpkin head did—the girl-in-the-hood was still too busy praying, and Colin couldn't do much but stare). Llyra gawked at the charging witch—her "dance" was like a cross between a penguin waddle with its tail on fire and an armos knight getting ready to explode!

"Speechless with amazement, arentcha!" Iris called to them as she continued her original dance number. She beamed. "This is called the Zany Zant Dance, or the ZZD! I learned it from a troupe of dancing redeads you know!"

Llyra scowled. No wonder it was so bad…the redeads probably died of shame dancing it.

"…and now to finish off with the hurricane spin!" Her feet shifted abruptly into an erratic whirl, and Llyra watched with twitching eyes as she spun around the floor as fast as a spiked beetle (she wondered how she didn't spin a hole through the wall), twirling the scepter so fast it looked like a propeller in her hands, while simultaneously spinning and kicking her foot so much that Llyra had to wonder whether the witch worked part time at a circus.

"And—VOILA!" She flung her hand up high in what Llyra assumed was meant to be her "Final Pose"—but Iris's arm had swung with a little too much gusto, because the spinning scepter flung itself right out of her hands straight up at the ceiling.

A moment of silence passed in which it didn't come back down. Llyra glanced up with raised brows, only to find that it had lodged itself into something on the ceiling. Upon squinting…she realized that something was a hornet nest. Llyra snickered at her bad luck (it was kind of refreshing to see someone else struggle with this sort of unlucky happenstance).

Iris didn't seem too disturbed, staring up at the hive with a halfway amused grin. "Oopsie…that last part wasn't supposed to happen."

Llyra raised a brow. "…why's there a hornet nest in the ceiling though?"

The witch tapped her chin. "…yes yes, in a deep dark passageway like this, methinks they should've gone for more macabre decor. I would've gone for a spike trap personally." She thrust a hand into her robes. "Don't worry though, I can get the wand down no problem, see…" her hands produced the magical boomerang from earlier. "…with this!"

Llyra cringed as the witch reeled her arm back, preparing to lob the gadget up. "—NO WAIT!" But Iris had already flung the boomerang. Llyra and the pumpkin head both flinched back as it sliced the hive off the ceiling.

Meantime, Iris had closed her eyes and raised her hand straight above her head, a peaceful smile upon her face. "Watch as I, the great Iris, catch the wand with graceful ease!"

"EEEEK!" The pumpkin head shrieked as the hive descended, "B-but Iris the bees!"

"Don't worry," Iris hummed as the beehive of wasps, wand, and boomerang came flying down towards her head. "I, the great witch Iris, know exactly what I'm doing!"

No one else seemed to agree however, as Llyra cringed and leaped back (though she had great experience being chased by bees, she was not in the mood to go to her every class looking like she had cucco pox) while simultaneously, the pumpkin head pushed Iris boldly out of the way just in time for the mass of it to fall upon her own pulpy skull. Or—not quite the whole mass of it; the wand must've weighed considerably more than the hive, because it landed straight down into the top of her pumpkin cranium like a giant not-so-appetizing lollipop.

The pumpkin head shrieked at the buzzing that had come with this undesirable weight. As she staggered about, violently ratcheting her head back and forth to shake the hive off, Iris frowned. "Awww gee, why'd you push me Phoney, I would've caught it you know!" She fiddled with the empty boomerang in her hands.

"S-sorry," the girl whimpered, still rocking her head back and forth like she were at a rock concert, "b-but I was just trying to avoid—" the hive finally flung off the end of the wand as she spoke, and they all watched as it sailed through the air…and landed on mannequin Colin's head. The pumpkin head cringed. "…trying to avoid THAT happening!"

Llyra took one look at Colin and busted into a laugh despite her concern for her frozen friend. The hive looked almost like a crown upon his head, and coupled with the wide-eyed stare on his face, he made for one dopey looking king. She only had a moment to admire his bold fashion though, before a certain infamous tongue suddenly lashed out, wrapped itself around the top of his head, and stole the crown of hornets away.

 **"MMmmMmmmmm, hooOorrnet laAarvaeEeee…."** the deep voice bellowed.

There was still a drizzle of honey dripping down Colin's face however, and one last hornet was climbing along the bridge of his nose. He stared at it with that frozen expression of his, when the ghini's tongue lashed out to catch that last scrap it'd missed. The moment the tongue licked Colin's face up and down, he finally snapped out of his long overdue stupor.

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" He shrieked, frantically wiping the ghini slobber from his face (plus the hornet honey in case there was any of that left, or perhaps the pink and green floating polygons if he happened to be seeing any of those…)

Llyra frowned, wondering whether she should teach her friend the count-to-ten-dodongorongos calming technique her grandpa had taught her, but Iris interrupted her thoughts with an elbow nudge. "Hey…I told you a lick from the ghini would've snapped him right to!" She shook her head. "Should've listened to me from the start!"

Before Llyra's mouth could dip into a scowl, Colin whirled and thrust his finger at each one of them in succession like he were sniping them all down with a bow (at least, Llyra thought staring into his worked up face, he was looking bolder than usual thanks to his frustration, right?) He looked the way her grandpa did after she'd broken his collection of water jugs as he shouted. "….alright. THAT'S IT. I'VE HAD IT…YOU!" He flung his finger the girl in the hood, still immersed in her prayers. "WHY IS THERE A GHINI ON YOUR HEAD! AND YOU!" He thrust his finger at the pumpkin head who flinched back. "WHY IS YOUR HEAD A PUMPKIN! AND YOUUUUUUU!" He pointed at Iris as she plucked the wand from the pumpkin head. "WHY ARE YOUU SPINNING AROUND WITH A WAND LIKE A MANIAC?!"

Iris frowned, absently trying to balance the wand on her nose. "Don't you know that's what great witches do…have you never met one before?"

He scowled. "I DID meet a witch just this morning…" he glanced briefly at Llyra. "…maybe TWO!"

Llyra's eye twitched. Was that a shot at her just now?

"Um…." The pumpkin head interjected, twiddling her fingers with the shyness of a korok, "the…the reason my head is a pumpkin…is…"

Iris wrapped an arm around her neck. "Is because I, the Great Witch Iris, did a great service to her head!" she beamed, proud as a Goron after seeing their kid win a race. "Isn't that right, Phoney?"

"…U-um…" the pumpkin head murmured beneath the grip of Iris's arm, "…my name is Phoeni though…"

"…right right," the witch yawned, sounding not at all like she was listening. "…anyway, I was bored after coming in early this morning, and that's when I used my witching skills to redecorate those lackluster decorations they had up in the hall!"

Llyra snickered. "Oh so the cow heads in the halls were your doing! That makes sense, actually."

Iris frowned. "…no no don't even joke! I won't be associated with such lackluster decor…that's why I thought to replace the cow heads with pumpkin heads!" She snapped her fingers, quite oblivious to the round of surrounding cringes. "Or even better…Zant heads!" She glanced at Phoeni, who yelped and shrunk back from her grin as though it'd cause another beehive to land on her head. "Oh sorry Phoney…you must be disappointed I didn't make your head a Zant head, no? I should've thought of it earlier!"

The pumpkin head flung up her arms. "O-oh n-no…that's okay…I…actually—"

"—you don't want to impose by asking me for another favor…right? Don't feel bad don't feel bad, you're not imposing at all!" Iris leaned an elbow on her pumpkin head. "Right, so I was about to magick that boring hall door into a much more interesting pumpkin door, when Phoney here decided to walk in and her head hijacked my spell! She must have sensed the direction that my spell was heading and opened the door at just the right moment to catch it!"

"…in other words…" Llyra deadpanned, pointing at Iris, "…it's all your fault, like I thought."

"Fault?!" Iris scoffed. "Whatchoo mean fault?! Phoney loves her new pumpkin head!" She swiveled to the vegetable head in question. "Don't you Phoney?"

Phoeni bit her pulpy lip. "U-um…actually…I…m-miss my old head…"

The witch leaned forward with a cocked brow. "Whaaat? Are you sure? Your head looks much better as a pumpkin I daresay! All the boys will be flocking after you, they'll love that jack-o-lantern look after all." She gestured towards Colin with a grin. "…see? You've got one eying you right here already!"

Colin winced. "Uhh…no…I…"

Llyra snickered, elbowing him. "Oh Colin don't be shy. It's always been your dream to date a pumpkin head, amiright?"

Colin glowered at her smirk.

 **"HhheEeeeyyyYyy litttLee puMmmmpkinnNn…"** hissed the ghini suddenly, **"…ddonNn't lisSssSsten to thheEeeirRr mMmmmockeryYyyy…I knnNnowwWww lotssSssSs ofFf ffFfriendDdssS thHaTt liiikeEeeee pumMmmmpkinsSsss in casSseeee youUu'rrRree interesSsssSsted…"**

"U-um…" Phoeni scratched her pumpkin head, and Llyra snorted at her awkward grin as it tottered between flattered and disturbed, "…th-thanks…I…guess?"

"…and what's her story?" Llyra gestured to the girl in the hood, who was still whispering prayers as though molten boulders would start falling from the sky if she stopped. "…no wait, let me guess. You cast a spell on her by accident."

"Of course not!" Iris snapped. "I don't do things by accident, I do them on purpose! …right, Eres?"

Colin and Llyra exchanged raised brows. … _on purpose…?_

"U-um…Iris…?" The pumpkin head beside Llyra piped up in a hushed tone. "…I-isn't her name actually…Seres…?"

Llyra frowned, glancing at the mystery girl in the hood. Her face from the nose up was completely obscured in shadow (Llyra's eye could only guess as to the whereabouts of the ghini in the darkness) and so Llyra couldn't discern much about the girl, other than her tendency to tremble more than a chandelier in a bar full of ruffians, and her affinity to pray much like a mogma likes to dig.

Iris was shaking her head at her like a mother disapproving her daughter's sense of fashion. "Hey, Eres, Stop hiding under your hood, would you? I daresay your hair looks…" she ripped Seres's hood back, revealing a gelatinous green blob with a giant eyeball where her hair was supposed to be, "…simply wicked!"

Llyra gasped, flinching back from the sudden emergence of the giant eye. So…the ghini was fused to her hair! She grimaced, feeling a pang of pity for this Seres girl. Though she couldn't brag being experienced with ghinis herself, she knew what it was like to have a gaseous ball of evil monster energy stinking up her hair, thank to the pranks of a certain somebody. (All those monster thoughts really start to weight down your head, literally! It makes for quite the monstrous headache.)

"EEEEEEK!" Seres shrieked, yanking the hood back down. "It's g-ghastly isn't it…positively ghastly!"

"Don't be daft! Ghinis are just like dogs with their slobbering tongues, they're very affectionate if you treat them right, and fun to play fetch with! They'll even catch a star fragment for you if you drop it off a cliff!" Iris tutted, shaking her head. "You should be taking advantage of the usefulness of that little critter you've got in your hair!"

Seres sighed. "…I…suppose I should try making the best of it. I may be partly to blame, after all…"

Iris crossed her arms. "That's right! You just _had_ to jump in the way of my spell when I was trying to fix Phoney's head!"

Llyra raised a brow and glanced back over at Colin. … _she summoned a ghini in order to fix her head…?_

Seres pulled her hood down lower. "Yes, my bad…I thought at first you were an evil witch attacking her…"

 _…and you're sure she isn't…?_ Colin and Llyra thought at once.

Iris frowned at the glum expressions on the faces of her transformed companions. "…don't tell me, you two are trying to say you want my wonderful spells removed…?"

The hood and the pumpkin exchanged uneasy looks as if afraid they'd regret making such a request.

"…if it's not too much to ask…"

"…you _can_ undo it, can't you…?"

Iris huffed. "Well of course I can undo it! Hang on…"

She withdrew that thick-as-prime-meat spellbook from earlier, and Llyra's curious eye once again fixated upon it. (The thought occurred to her—If someone like _Iris_ could get the spells in it to work, that spelled good news for Llyra, right?)

As Iris held up the scepter and prepared to launch into some kind of ballerina-dropout routine, Llyra caught her arm and fixed her with a redead glare (she'd learned this glare courtesy of That Guy). "…do the ZZD again and I'll shred your hat."

Iris cast her a puzzled look. "…well then, how about instead I do the—"

"—NO!"

The witch scowled. "…okay okay, I'll skip the dance. But if the spell goes awry…it's on you, alright?"

Llyra rolled her eyes as she watched the witch fling out her wand and strike her still-two-notches-over-exaggerated camera pose alongside her incantation.

" **I-N ~ T-H-E ~ N-A-M-E ~ O-F ~ A-L-L ~ T-H-I-N-G-S ~ C-U-R-S-E-D ~ M-A-Y ~ T-H-E ~ S-P-E-L-L-S ~ U-P-O-N ~ T-H-E-S-E ~ T-W-O ~ B-E ~ R-E-V-E-R-S-E-D-!"**

With the wand thrust out, a green beam shot forth from the dragon's mouth and enveloped the two girls in a flurry of green smoke. Llyra squinted through the subsequent flash of light, intrigued to see the results (despite her greater than Great doubts as to Iris's abilities). When the mist had cleared, she found standing before her, a girl with a pumpkin for a head, and another girl with gaseous hair and a giant eyeball peeking out from it—same as they'd been before, save for one notable difference:

The spells upon the two girls had been reversed.

Llyra bit down hard on her cheek to keep from cracking into a laugh. You could say the reversal had been a success…in some sense at least.

The hood on the girl in the cloak had popped off since it no longer fit around her large, orange head, and she felt at the pulpy, rough skin of it with a surprising calmness in her fingers. "…my head is a pumpkin now, isn't it?" She took in a deep breath, and for a moment Llyra thought for certain she'd unleash an ear-splitting scream.

"PHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWW!" A deep sigh is what came from her throat instead, followed by a stretch of her arms as though she'd just woken from a long dream. "What a relief."

Llyra and Colin exchanged bewildered glances. _She's relieved her head's a pumpkin?_

Seres stroked her new head like it were as fine as the soft fur of a mountain doe. "I mean, it's still not _quite_ right, but nevertheless an immense improvement over having my hair crawling with concentrated evil." She shuddered. "Finally, I can think straight again!"

"U-uhm, S-seres?" Beside her, the girl who'd inherited the gaseous hair, with its ghostly presence whispered, "D-do you think I could borrow your robe…?"

Before Seres could utter a word in response, the Ghini's tongue shot out from the girl's hair and snatched the robe right off the pumpkin head's shoulders. To everyone's surprise, rather than reeling it in and swallowing yet another of its cloth-flavored snacks, it dropped the robe over Phoeni's head.

" **IisSsssSsss ttthHhaaattTtt beEttteerRrrrrr…"** the ghini hissed from atop its perch in her hair.

"O-oh…" Phoeni whispered, drawing the cloak around her, "Um…thank you?" Tentatively, she raised her hand and—after a moment's hesitation—patted the ghini. "Nice ghini…oh wow!" She grinned, stroking her gaseous hair like the belly of a puppy. "You've got a funny texture!"

" **YYyoouuUuu'reEee hhHhaaairrRr issSs mMmuchhHh morreEe comfFfortableEee thHhhanN thattTtt pPprrriesSstesS's overRr thereeEe…"**

Llyra raised a brow. Was she… _bonding_ with the ghini?

Iris whistled at this strange new camaraderie. "…an unexpected good development come from an otherwise faulty spell." She shook her head at Llyra. "…told you the spell wouldn't work without the dance."

Llyra glowered. "…right…because you _definitely_ didn't cast the wrong one." Her eyes flew to the book. "Why don't you hand me that spellbook and let me locate the right reversal spell for you this time?"

Iris waved her hand dismissively, missing Llyra's sarcasm entirely. "Oh thanks for offering, but that's not necessary. I already have another reversal spell in mind." Immediately, she thrust her wand back at the two spell-cast girls, oblivious to the way they flinched as though she'd pulled out a super sized bomb. "Ready for round two?" She beamed.

"NO!" came their unified shriek.

Iris squinted from one to the other with a frown. "…no? Whaddya mean NO?!"

The two girls glanced at one another.

"I mean…" Seres rubbed her pumpkin face. "…this isn't so bad, right Phoeni?"

"It's…" Phoeni stroked her ghini hair. "…not as bad as I thought, having a ghini on my head! It's kinda cute!"

The witch frowned, tapping the wand to her forehead. "…are you sure? It's really no trouble at all for me to—"

"—you've got to save your energy, Iris!" Phoeni glanced over at Seres, grasping for a decent excuse. "In order to…to…"

"…to catch the Reapling, of course!" The pumpkin head finished.

A moment of silence passed as her words sank into everyone's heads, and a certain shadowy-cloaked problem which everyone had temporarily forgotten about erupted in them all at once.

"THE REAPLING!" Colin and Llyra blurted at each other.

"THAT DEMON ROBOT!" Iris howled, suddenly bouncing on her knees like a dynalfos itching for a fight. "I've still got a score to settle! How dare it flee after saying I dressed like an unwanted guest! **"**

"…oh no…" Colin moaned, "…what if it escapes into the school and—and—and shows up at the assembly hall and the headmaster gets beheaded right in the middle of his speech about vanquishing darkness?" His face was blue as the Naydra statue in the faculty quad. "…then he'll go down in history as the Headless Headmaster, and it'll be all our fault—and—"

"—you say the demon robot is an assembly-crashing menace AND a foul-mouth?!" Iris was practically shouting. "Well in that case—"

"… **foOoOls…"** the voice of the ghini rasped coolly between the confusion, "… **gettinNng so woOrRrrked uPpp abouUuut a looOowly RrreapPpplingGg…"**

"—I mean, beheading is one thing," Iris went on, "…but only an entity of great evil would insult my witch ensemble—I spent two whole weeks assembling it you know!" She smacked the scepter against her open palm like an angry teacher. "I'll catch that robot and squish it into slimey goop!"

"No no, no squishing of Cherry!" Llyra finally blurted out with no context between all the voices, tactfully as ever. "The busted robot is Cherry! We're already in trouble, squishing her more will be worse, we gotta restore Cherry!"

"…wait wait, back up…you mean…" Iris tapped the wand to her chin. "…that demon Robot was genetically engineered from a Cherry?! I should've known cherries were concentrated sources of evil!"

"…so wait, who's cherries got squished…?" the girl in the hood murmured.

" **…** **cherRrieeesSs** ** **…tthoOosSseee**** **aaBbbomMmminnNnattionssSss taaAaste wooOorse thanNn ppPprrimMmee mmMeeaTTt anNndd ssSeaaFfoOod SsTiRrrFfryy..."**

"…no, wait, you don't mean…" the pumpkin head chimed in with a frown,"…we're talking about Cherry, the administrative Academy robot?!"

Iris shook her head. "…you know what, I've never liked cherries anyway…" She crossed her arms. "…you're sure we can't talk about berries instead?"

"No! Yes, No!" Llyra glanced at Colin for help. "You explain!"

He frowned, communicating with his eyes. _What am I supposed to say?_

 _Just…summarize! I don't know!_

He sighed as though this were the fiftieth impossible thing he'd been asked to do today. "Okay guys, listen up. The truth is…the administrative robot Cherry's memory got fried because she got attacked by…by…" his eyes flicked to Llyra a moment, as though questioning whether to name her as the culprit or not. "…by…Ganon."

If Llyra had her telescope she would've whacked him on the head. "Colin!" she hissed. Was he trying to make the situation more confusing?

"Ganon?!" Seres gave a light gasp. "You wouldn't happen to mean THE Ganon, would you? If so, the Royal Knights should be warned post haste!" (Her words and her gestures were entirely different, Llyra thought, watching her spread some strange green moisturizer on her pumpkin head at the easygoing pace of a sneaky river snail.)

"Was it really him?!" Iris's voice piqued with excitement. "Do you think he's still around?! I want to ask him how he grew his nose to be so long!"

"Did you hypnotize him with a fishing rod?!" Phoeni blurted out, stroking her ghini as if this were a normal thing to do while asking a perfectly normal question. "…just wondering."

Colin, the champion of tact and poise flailed his arms up in defense. "No no no, I mean…" he rubbed his neck. "…this was just an imposter Ganon, or um…a fraud wannabe copycat fan, you know?" He winced the moment the words left his lips, sensing as Llyra turned her fraud wannabe copycat fan stare on him.

Seres frowned. "…but, how can you be sure?"

Colin smiled twitched. "Um, because this Ganon was a…a huge scaredy cat." He scratched his cheek, doing his best not to melt under Llyra's meteor rod glare. "I mean, this Ganon was afraid of an itty bitty walltula! That's why Cherry's head got bashed in…there happened to be one sitting on her head when Ganon freaked out and—WHAM! She took a blow to the head, which scrambled her memory…"

He flinched as a cold hand clamped his shoulder, and squawked as he turned to face Llyra's glowing guardian eyes.

… _who's the scaredy cat again, Colin?_ Her eyes taunted.

Colin gulped and slid behind the pumpkin head. "A-anyway, Cherry was just an innocent victim of an unsolicited attack—"

"—it was a _justified_ attack!" Llyra snarled suddenly, spearing her finger at his face.

Colin cast her a blank look. "Llyra—"

"—Cherry had downloaded dangerous illegal information that would've lead to catastrophic destruction, and Ganon was compelled to—"

"—you're just confusing them more now!" He gave her a pointed look as his fingers made a cutthroat motion across his neck. _Stop talking!_

"—NONO!" Iris gasped. "I understand now, I understand perfectly! I've got a complete picture of the situation now in fact!"

Llyra and Colin traded dubious glances. "…you do?!"

"Oh yes…that poor robot! I completely misunderstood her intentions!" Iris began to pace back and forth, like she were cracking a great mystery worthy of her exceptional sleuthing skills. "Ganon must've planned to hack the robot in order to wreak some kind of havoc with her…but though it was a decent plan, his fat fingers didn't have the skills to pull it off, and his doomed attempts at hacking only lead to the robot's head getting scrambled!"

"Uh…" Colin tried to cut in, "…but as I said, that wasn't _really_ Ganon—"

"—Realizing too late he lacked the competence of a Great Witch, Ganon was so ashamed of his humiliating mistake he then ran away crying, abandoning the robot all alone with her broken head! And that's when…" Iris flicked her cape. "…naturally, that robot Berry came seeking yours truly for help! Using her robot intuition, she correctly concluded that I, The Great Iris was best suited to restoring her to working condition! Only, her head was so broken and she was so nervous when speaking before my greatness that the wrong words came spilling out of her mouth!"

"Um, but Iris…" Phoeni exchanged glances with Seres, "if Cherry's head were broken, how would she have thought to come to you—"

"—it's decided!" Iris clapped her hands together. "I shall honor our humble robot Berry's request and restore her to her fully functional working glory!" She tipped her hat. "Oh its nothing for a witch of my caliber, no need to thank me! "

As she went on bowing to her imaginary fans, Colin and Llyra exchanged cringes. Notwithstanding Iris's warped understanding of the circumstances, her spell-casting intervention _could_ be just the help they needed…or it could make things a lot worse.

The witch in question wrapped an arm around each of their necks, renewing their wince. "…And don't worry, I'll let you all be my sidekicks! Four members in my entourage is hardly a crowd for my feats of daring-do!"

Colin slipped carefully out from under her arm. "Uh, not to be a downer about your… _feats of daring-do_ , but…am I the only person who's concerned about approaching Cherry as the big shadowy, scythe wielding Reapling she is now?"

Llyra crossed her arms and glowered at Iris. "…you know, that wouldn't be an issue if _somebody_ hadn't turned her into a Reapling in the first place."

Iris scratched her cheek. "You're right…who did do that?"

They all stared at her.

Iris frowned. "…I did…?"

The pumpkin head and the girl in the hood spoke in unison. "…you did."

The witch scratched her neck absently with the wand. "Hmmm…I _did_ think it was odd that the robot suddenly transformed and ran away like that…"

"Iris…" Seres murmured softly. "…the spell you cast was to _join The Fallen._ Don't you know that Reaplings are referred to as The Fallen?"

"…Really?" Iris frowned. "…you're sure the spell didn't mean fall to the ground in defeat?"

Llyra snorted. "…do you remember Cherry falling to the ground in defeat? Because I don't."

Iris merely waved her hand. "Oh big deal! So we'll hit Berry with a reversal spell and —poof— Berry is a Reapling no more! Problem solved, right?"

An anxious look passed between the pumpkin head and her companion in the hood at the words ' _reversal spell_ ,' (and Llyra had the spur-of-the-moment idea to steal her telescope back from Colin's bag and knock Iris out for everyone's sake), but a diplomatic clearing of the throat set these wonky thoughts straight.

"…If I may suggest," Seres reasoned, "why don't you lend me that spell book of yours and let me see if I can locate a… _better_ reversal spell on your behalf?" The pumpkin head held out her hand. "As a priestess-in-training, I'm not unfamiliar with spells, and I'm quite good at researching all manner of reference books."

Llyra was aware all of a sudden, of a serene aura surrounding her figure, hand outstretched, emanating the noble presence of someone who could bathe in the freezing cold holy waters of the Spring of Wisdom for twenty four hours without passing out. This girl would've fit in perfectly at any gathering of royal dignitaries—if it weren't for her pumpkin head, Llyra thought. (T'was rather impressive composure for someone with a pumpkin for a head—a stark contrast to her cowering hysterics earlier back when the ghini had lurked in her hood. By comparison, this girl here seemed like a whole new person! Llyra was almost envious in fact.)

To add to her almost envy, she'd expected Iris to spring back clutching the book to her chest like it were her own child (as she'd done earlier when Llyra had asked for it)—but to her dismayed surprise, the witch thrust the book into Seres's hands as though relieved to be rid of the dastardly thing.

"Why that's an excellent suggestion, Eres!" (Note to self, Llyra thought eying the spell book: learn to give off a fancy aura.)

Seres frowned, smoothing the cover of the book. "Alright, but my name is Seres—"

"—It's such a chore trying to find the right spell all the time, so you can do that menial part for me while I'll focus on the important stuff!"

Llyra hardly had the time to roll her eyes at what she meant before Iris spun towards her and struck a pose, leg kicked out and scepter flung up. To everyone's alarm, an incantation suddenly left her lips.

 **"B-Y ~ W-A-Y ~ O-F ~ O-U-R ~ P-R-I-D-E ~ C-A-L-L ~ T-O ~ M-Y ~ S-I-D-E ~ A ~ S-P-E-L-L-B-I-N-D-I-N-G ~ R-I-D-E-!"**

An emerald green froth spat from the mouth of the dragonheaded wand as the surrounding lot realized too late she was casting an actual spell. Their hands flung up in instinctive defense, as though bracing for a nuclear explosion—but to their surprise, when the green smoke cleared, the only horror that greeted their eyes was a single, stationary, floating pitchfork.

Iris seemed pleased at its appearance. She stood beside it beaming like she'd summoned a loftwing out of the heavens. "…tada! Our ride has arrived!"

They all stared at the pitchfork as if expecting it to start attacking them.

Iris scowled at their expressions. "…stop looking so surprised, would you? Did you really think I couldn't handle such a simple summons?" She crossed her arms. "My spells have an excellent success rate, I'll have you know!"

"…but…a pitchfork?" Llyra raised a brow. "Don't witches ride brooms?"

Iris snickered. "A broom? What're you from the Force Era? Brooms are ancient. Pitchforks are in fashion now!" She tapped the pitchfork. "We will travel much faster this way!"

Colin was suddenly looking pale as a freezor. "…wait, what do you mean…we? This…um… _pitchfork_ would only fit a couple of us after all, so…" (Llyra snorted at how his eye twitched on the word ' _pitchfork_.')

"…not a problem," the enlightened pumpkin head expertly advised, "…an extension spell should solve that." Her fingers went to work fluttering through the pages of the spellbook (as Colin groaned in dismay).

"…wait…" Iris smoothed her hat. "…I know a spell for that! Yes yes….…what was it again…?"

Seres thrust an open page into the witch's hands. "…this one, perhaps?"

Iris blinked down at the page. "…huh, that could work." She proceeded with a terribly flimsy arabesque, thrusting the scepter at the pitchfork, and incanting before anyone could object.

 **"F-O-R ~ S-A-K-E ~ O-F ~ O-U-R ~ G-L-I-D-E ~ R-E-V-I-S-E ~ O-U-R ~ R-I-D-E ~ T-O ~ B-E ~ T-H-R-I-C-E ~ A-S ~ W-I-D-E-!"**

Another green beam shot from the dragon's mouth to envelop the pitchfork, and Llyra stared into the smoke until it receded; there she found the pitchfork had tripled so wide, it wouldn't have fit in her bathroom back home.

She whistled in approval. That made for a surprising streak of two successful spells in a row for the Great Iris! Perhaps her chances of repairing Cherry weren't as bad as they'd imagined.

Iris mounted her trusty steed, the noble pitchfork, and beamed at her surrounding crew. "Come my sidekicks, let us disembark!"

There was a moment of awkward silence in which the line of them all stared at their ride.

"Ummmm," Phoeni piped up finally, "I'll go only if Gino is okay with it." She slipped a hand into her hood and stroked her gaseous hair gently. "…are you, little guy?"

Llyra snorted. … _Gino_ …? She'd really gone and named that ghini like a pet dog?!

" **MmMmmmmmMmmmm,"** rasped the voice of the ghini, " **suuUurreEe…that RrrreEeaAaaplinNng'sSss cloakKkk loOokedDdd pretTty tasSsty…"**

That was apparently all Phoeni needed to hear before hopping on and huddling in behind Iris.

By contrast, Seres appeared conflicted, staring intently at the pitchfork like it were a shadow beast attempting to befriend her from another dimension. "Ooookay Seres," she murmured beneath her breath, "…you're just riding on a witch's… _pitchfork_ …nothing to be concerned about…" she took a deep breath and whispered some prayer about forgiveness to the golden goddesses before climbing on behind Phoeni.

The palest among them, Colin's eye was still twitching as though this were his ride to hell. Llyra raised a brow, leaning in to whisper, "…hey…you wouldn't be afraid of heights or something, would you…?"

He scowled. "…more like afraid I'll regret boarding a pronged fork lead by a witch with a brain more scrambled than Talo's after stuffing his face with sweet shrooms!"

Llyra snorted. "…so then, you'd rather stay here alone by yourself in this deep, dark labyrinth?"

He grimaced at her, sighing deeply before begrudgingly mounting the accursed pitchfork, being certain to scoot as far from the pronged end as possible.

Finally, Llyra mounted the back end, a wry grin on her face. The gears of her genius ideas were ticking loudly in her head as Iris The Great kicked off from the ground—and amidst the shrieks of its riders, the long, long pitchfork shot down the hall out of sight.

o | O | o

Though the concept of flying at an elevated height on anything (let alone on a hyperextended pitchfork in a dim underground passageway) would be considered a novelty for most people, for Llyra, it was not only rather standard but also to a certain extent _relaxing_ (despite how sitting on a pitchfork handle was certainly no kikwi couch). Back home, Zeffa gave her constant rides, so she was used to riding high above the island among the seagulls—if anything, she was more relaxed with the wind whipping through her hair up high than down on the ground, since it came with a sense of freedom and reprieve; soaring high above her problems was when her mind worked at its best.

Thus, while Colin clutched tightly to the pole with eyes squeezed shut like he were on a particularly unpleasant fantastication ride, and while Seres studied her new book as she directed Iris up front, and Phoeni made hushed conversation with her newest ghini pal, Llyra sat relaxed on the back end, her mind buzzing with ideas as her eyes focused on just one thing several passengers in front of her:

The witch wand.

As she stared, Colin straightened up slightly, leaning back to whisper, "Okay Llyra…remind me again why we're here?! You don't think Iris is seriously gonna succeed at fixing Cherry, do you?"

"I wouldn't hold my breath," Llyra whispered back. "But even if she makes things worse, it doesn't matter, I've got an idea."

Colin groaned. "Unless your idea is that we get off this pitchfork and out of this labyrinth back to somewhere civilized, (preferably with a floor to stand on and teachers to scold us) like the assembly for example, I'm gonna assume your idea is a bad one."

Llyra rolled her eyes. "Just hear me out, okay?" She leaned in, lowering her voice until it was barely an audible whisper. "I was _thinking_...if Iris's spell-casting doesn't go well, we should find a way to distract her and…borrow her wand and spellbook."

Colin creased his brow at her. "…by borrow, you mean _steal,_ don't you?"

She shook her head. "No no! I just meant borrow…secretly. We'll give them right back, once we're done!"

The crease in his brow deepened. "Done doing what exactly, Llyra?!"

She pursed her lip. "…just think, how many problems have we got right now with big consequences and no solution?"

"…you want me to list them? I lost count."

Her lip tugged upwards into a mischievous grin. "Well the good news is, you can forget them all! Just think about what that wand could do to make them disappear! That spell book must be full of all sorts of spells after all…you know…?"

For a moment, there was a glimmer of interest in his eye, but Colin shook his head. "No Llyra. It's a bad idea."

Llyra scowled. Of course, she should've expected that ever risk-evading Colin to reject such an idea. But still, how could he stand to overlook such an opportunity?! She bit her cheek. "Oh come on, Colin! The wand could fix everything, not just Cherry! That includes the weapon hall, the private restroom…we can have it all back to the way it was by the time the assembly ends and no one will ever know the difference!"

His brows rose cynically. "…oh sure, _maybe_ if either of us were competent with a wand, the odds of that happening wouldn't be below zero…"

Llyra bit her lip. "How do you know whether you're competent with a wand if you've never tried using one?"

"Llyra…" his voice had turned to a furious whisper, "…you are _not_ talking me into messing around with any spells we know nothing about!"

"Fine, then leave the spell casting to me!"

He stared at her like she'd asked to light a match on death mountain. "…you _do_ know that on a scale of one to ten of your scariest ideas, you, plus a wand, is a _fifteen_ , right?"

"Oh come on…" she nodded towards Iris, humming some kind of theme song about Great Witches and triumph forks with lyrics that didn't rhyme, bopping in the front seat. "…even _she's_ managed to get a few spells working, so it can't be that difficult!" Llyra crossed her arms. "At the very least, I can't be worse at it than her!"

Colin pressed his lip into a grim line. "Or…you _can_ be worse, and you really _will_ manage to get the school nuked before the assembly ends."

"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence," she scowled. "Look, can you at least try to get the spellbook from Seres? Tell her you used to work as a…a witch's assistant or something, and spellbooks are your thing."

Colin raised a brow. "…or…here's a thought, we leave the spellbook with her since she seems to be doing just fine with it herself."

Llyra pursed her lip. "…maybe she isn't, though?"

"I've found JUST the spell!" The pumpkin head in question interrupted them from up front, and they glanced ahead to find her holding the spellbook out to Iris. "This reversal will undo the effects of a previously cast spell…I'm almost certain this is what we want!"

Colin cast Llyra a pointed look. She rolled her eyes.

Iris beamed approvingly at the pumpkin head as she thrust the book back into her hands. "…now we just need to find our poor, confused Berry!" Her eager eyes turned overhead. "We are getting warmer, right?"

Seres nodded to the darkness above their heads. "…oh yes. Now that that evil aura is finally out of my hair…" she sighed, glancing apologetically at Phoeni (who seemed to be busy rubbing her new pet), "…my sixth sense is returning. The aura of that Reapling has been strengthening the higher we go."

"That's…just fantastic…" Colin moaned, staring up into the darkness with a look of nausea as the pitchfork continued to ascend.

To their left and right, the high walls of the labyrinth flanked at a close enough proximity that Llyra was nearly tempted to reach her hand out and touch the cold stone. The lesser enthusiastic Colin was hoping at the very least that once they flew above those enclosing walls, they'd be released into a wide open space—naturally he was wrong. To the bewilderment (or chagrin) of the passengers aboard the pitchfork, ascending passed said walls only released them into a labyrinth of even greater scope that awaited at higher altitude.

Beneath their dangling feet, the tops of the perpendicular walls they'd risen passed made for a floor full of dark, angular holes as they floated in the midst of a deep blue midnight space broken only by the occasional light of a sconce (Llyra was reminded of the time she dove deep underwater at half passed twelve looking for a secret seashell she'd dropped, only to wind up lost in some underwater cave). Meantime, a new plethora of partial walls, undefined obstructions, and gravity-defying staircases jutted out above them at irregular angles, as though the designer had gotten bored of conventional passages with clear entrances and exits—and sent a quake medallion through the whole space to shake its contents into unorthodox positions for the sole purpose of being as unnervingly confusing as possible.

Between the peculiar walls and curious obstructions were pocket openings branching off into what seemed an infinite amount of narrow halls, tight staircases, and winding rooms—and as Seres weaved them upwards through them (with very awkward turns due to the abnormal length of the pole), Llyra couldn't decide which was more nightmarishly confusing—navigating this space, or the Academy itself.

She groaned as they dove up through another passage. "Hey, is it some kind of fad going on now to build places that'll get people lost and confused?!"

"Here's a better question…" Colin stared at the cracks in the dark, stony walls, "…if this isn't the underworld—and I'm not convinced it isn't—then where ARE we?"

"C'mon Colin," Llyra scoffed, "I already said, we're under the school!"

"But how can we still be under it?! We've been rising up up up like a rocketing gossip stone!"

"Excuse me," The pumpkin head rotated towards them, "…not that I claim to know for sure since this is my first day here (and I've only visited a couple of times before), but I think these passages may wind between the walls of the Academy…"

Colin frowned. "What, so you think that on the other side of some of these walls could be regular halls and classrooms…?"

Llyra snorted. "You think they built a labyrinth inside a labyrinth? Why, was one not confusing enough on its own?!"

The pumpkin head shook itself. "…Actually, I'd say if you knew how to navigate this place well, you could probably make effective use of it for shortcuts."

Colin creased his brow. "…I dunno, how would that all fit together in space?"

Llyra pursed her lip. "…Colin, haven't you ever been in one of those temples that's much bigger on the inside than on the outside?"

He frowned at her. "…what…?"

She snickered. "…how about this, have you ever wondered how your favorite hero carries around all his heavy weapons without so much as a bag?" She bit her tongue to keep from laughing at Colin's expression. Actually, she was pretty certain that That Guy's deep, dark, closet locked in his room was as much a labyrinth of its own as the one they were in now.

Colin though, seemed submerged deep in thought. "…maybe he's got something that bends dimensional space."

"Exactly. So maybe this passageway—"

"—I've got it, it must be his HAT!" Colin thrust his fist in the air with a wide, jubilant grin, like he'd just solved a riddle that'd activated a secret shrine. "It must work like a magic sac with unlimited space! Oooh I KNEW the hat had some important secret!"

"What's that about a HAT?!" Iris called back. "Who's got a super special HAT?!"

"Shhhhh, guys…!" Phoeni called back in a hush. "…Gino is taking a nap, don't shout!"

"…but I doubt it's as special a hat as any of mine." Iris continued, smoothing her hat brim (quite blind to Llyra's roll of the eyes). "If you think this one's impressive, you should see the other one I brought today." She frowned. "…too bad I left that one back in the assembly hall."

Colin's jaw dropped. "…wait a minute, you mean to say you were AT the assembly hall?!"

Iris shrugged. "Yeah, I sure was. And these two were there also…" She nodded to the two behind her. "…Though of course, *I* was the first to arrive! That was like two hours ago though, WAY before the common crowd."

Colin smacked his forehead. "…well why aren't you there now?!"

" **MuUAahHaAhHaAhHaAhHaAhHaAhHaAhHaAAaAaAA!"** A familiar deep-throated laugh startled them from their conversation, echoing from down the hall.

"…oh no…" Colin groaned, clutching the pole again.

"…oh YES…!" Llyra's lip widened as she whipped her eyes towards the front. There, off in the dark blue distance, the backside of their friendly neighborhood phantom and its glimmering scythe had hovered into view.

"KIHIHIHIHHIIIII!" Iris cackled in front. "Sorry friends, but I think our VIP guest up ahead needs our undivided attention now!"

Phoeni sighed, patting her hair. "…So much for Gino's nap. Can't sleep with all this laughter after all."

Colin frowned. "…so do you think it's just been flying through the halls, periodically laughing this whole time?"

Llyra snorted. "Well, maybe some of Cherry's brokenness got carried over through the transformation…" A corner of her lip tugged up higher. "…or maybe Reaplings aren't that smart to begin with." She nudged Colin with a grin. "I heard tektites wait in the same spot all day and only start jumping if someone comes by."

"…did someone say JUMPING?!" Iris sang at them as her mouth pulled open into a wide, cheshire smile. "Cause this witch is ready to get JUMPING!" True to her literal word, she bounced up from the pitchfork onto her feet like she were bouncing on a diving board, lurching her other passengers into off-balance hysterics.

"Oh would you please sit down Iris!" Seres cried, clutching to the spellbook in one hand, and to their ride in the other, "This isn't a snowboard!"

"…I second that!" Colin whined, both arms clutched tight to the pole.

Iris leapt with surprising immediacy back down on her knees like a hot-footed frog and whipped toward them with a suspicious grin. "Everyone…duck!"

"What—?" They scarcely had time to dodge their heads low enough as the pitchfork shot into a narrow passage, and Llyra gasped up at the too-close-for-comfort ceiling that had nearly lobbed off her head.

The pounding of her heart relaxed only slightly as the narrow hall ejected them into a wide, rounded passage that sent them winding around a cylindrical wall like a spool, the girth of which was so enormous that circling it felt like doing laps around a stadium. To boot, the ceiling once again rose so high as to be obscured in darkness, and Colin stared up at it with a groan.

Iris was nonetheless cackling as she sprung back on her feet, standing tall and unperturbed at the front of the pitchfork like captain of a ship as they gained slowly in on their shadowy guide.

Llyra's own eyes were sparkling with the infection of the thrill too, and she wondered...when was the last time she'd gotten to participate in a chase like _this?_ (Being chased by bees between the trees of the forest of fairies didn't count) the answer had to be—not since the time she'd chased a horde of miniblins who stole her telescope down the side of a cliff!

She nudged her comrade, trembling a seat in front of her. "Hey Colin…wanna place bets on how much damage Iris causes?"

He turned to her with a scowl. "…you're actually enjoying this, aren't you?!"

She beamed in response. "Oh come on! We're chasing down a Reapling in a grand showdown, like actual knights would on a real mission! That's neat, right?"

He scowled. "Yeah sure…if you forget that the Reapling's got a giant death scythe that could send us on a one way trip to the next world…or the worser fate awaiting us if we're not killed—that we're almost certain to get expelled after this!"

Llyra frowned. "Colin, do you have to rain on my parade?" Her lips tugged up into a grin as she watched Iris tap the wand to her chin. "Hey…bet you a red rupee she misses and blows up the wall somehow…?"

Iris was muttering to herself. "…Wrath of battle doth be fun…why hath that be undone…" She frowned, twirling the wand through her fingers. "…what was the spell again…? …oh right I remember now—OOPS!" The wand suddenly slipped through her fingers, earning a wince from the onlookers as she caught it again milliseconds before it would've been lost to the oblivion below.

Llyra snorted. "Make that a purple rupee."

"…Nayru help her please," Seres murmured, shaking her head.

Colin frowned. "…you do realize her mishaps will mean more trouble for us, right?"

Llyra shook her head. "…No way. If she blows a giant hole in the wall and it turns out the assembly hall's on the other side, it's not our fault right?"

He raised a brow. "…If you're hoping her luck will be worse than yours and she'll end up causing more damage than you in the end, I say not a chance." He shot her a wry grin. "Don't worry, your title as the ultimate trouble is not so easily matched, Llyra."

The pitchfork seesawed suddenly beneath them like a boat rocking its way through a turbulent wave, and as they were nearly lurched overboard, Llyra glanced up to find Iris doing her obligatory ballerina spin. (She snorted, wondering whether to be more concerned or impressed that the Great Witch could manage to do that while flying on a pitchfork.)

"Iris!" Seres gasped. "I thought we agreed no dancing—"

"— **D-O-T-H ~ T-H-E ~ B-A-T-T-L-E ~ B-E ~ W-O-N ~ H-A-T-H ~T-H-Y ~ S-P-E-L-L ~ B-E ~ U-N-D-O-N-E-! "**

As the words left the witch's lips, the wand gleamed in her outstretched hand, and Llyra watched with bated breath as the dragonhead spat out a green beam that headed straight for Cherry's shadowy cloak—only to fly passed its hood by mere inches and sputter out as it hit the curved wall.

Llyra frowned. "…well that's disappointing."

Colin raised a brow. "Disappointing she missed, or disappointing the wall didn't blow up?"

"How about both?"

He sighed. "Yeah well, I'm just glad the Reapling still hasn't noticed us."

Up front, the captain of their little flying ship shook her fist at their friendly neighbor armed with a scythe. "HEY BERRY! Iris the Great is trying to honor your request to save you! CAN'T YOU HOLD STILL?!"

At this call to its attention, the Reapling rotated its hooded head around and fixed its beady red eyes on them.

The lot of them flinched.

"…nevermind," Colin groaned.

Seres squeezed the book. "Oh Iris, you shouldn't have done that!"

" **MuHahaAhaHAhAhHaAaAaAa!"** It's deep voice echoed along the walls towards them. " **GaAaAaNoN gOnNa nUuUuUuUkE tHe sChOoOoOoOoL!"**

As it pivoted around and flew towards them with its scythe gleaming in its ragged hands, they let loose the discordant chords of a collective shriek—or at least the three sandwiched in the middle did (Llyra sounded more like she was laughing in the back).

Iris leaned forward with a hunter's grin, wide as it'd ever been, wand poised in hand. "That's right, come to your savior, don't be shy!"

"IRIS—!" Seres's eyes were glued to the book. "—there's a shorthand spell here for repeat-last-command—"

"—Yeah yeah, I know!"

Llyra raised a brow as Iris flung out her wand again (of course not without one obligatory shimmy) and uttered a quick phrase that made less sense to Llyra than roasting a hunk of rock salt to eat for lunch.

" **C-O-N-T-R-O-L ~ Y ~ R-E-T-R-Y-!"**

Llyra snorted. "…that's a spell?!" She watched with suspended brows as another green beam shot towards the shadowy monster as it simultaneously lunged at them **—** only it dodged, and following a single panicky moment in which the shadow of the great scythe fell over their stupefied faces, the Reapling's scraggly hand swung the great chopper down upon their heads.

Luckily, in the nanosecond before they'd have been sliced and diced into meat salad, Iris managed to lurch the pitchfork roughly out of the way—it tottered backwards through the air, like a bird that'd just barely escaped the predatory dive of a hawk.

Colin gasped, clinging to the pole for dear life. He glowered at Llyra. "Still think this is fun, Llyra?" She shot him a cursory half-smirk, despite the pounding of her heart. (She was willing to argue that she'd still been in worse situations after all…)

Iris though was back up on her feet in an instant, and at work stroking her magical witch chin. "If only there was a way to make it hold still…!"

Llyra raised a brow. "Oh…like your boomerang, that only works sometimes…?"

"Or a long, long tongue that could constrict it?" Colin added, glancing at Phoeni.

Iris snapped her fingers. "Yess, that's perfect!" She crouched back on her knees and beamed into Phoeni's hood. "Hey little ghini! You listening?! Be a witch's best pal and bind up that Reapling with your tongue, would you? Thanks."

The ghini hissed back at her, " **SsSsilencCcee you nnooOoiisy witchhHh. ThooOose whomMm distuUurb mMy ssSslummberrRrr desserRrveEe to eaTtt nottHhhinGg but naaSsty roaAastedd gouUurrmet steakssSsSss…"**

Iris frowned. "Hey…but I actually like roasted gourmet steaks—"

"—Iris," Phoeni whispered, "let me, okay?" She slipped her hand into her hood and tickled her hair. "Hey, Gino…? …I'll bring you some nice yummy corduroy shoes later if you can catch that Reapling!"

" **mMmMmm,"** the ghini murmured sounding almost gleeful (if a raspy voice could sound gleeful), " **onNn secondDd thoughttTt the cloaaAk doesSsss looOookkk ratherrRr tastyYyyy afFfterRr allLl…"**

Llyra snorted. The ghini was actually listening to her?! (This was as odd as seeing her zany neighbor Zill take orders from his teacher to wipe his drippy nose for once!)

She watched with raised brows as fifty yards of slimy tongue rapidly shot forth and tried to encircle the Reapling like a monstrous snake, only for the phantomlike prey to dodge its aggressive binds and duck into a passage in the outer wall. They shot into the passage after it, gliding passed mystical blue sconces and heighty mirrors set at regular intervals along the hall, all the while as the monster tongue lunged continuously at the Reapling like an angry piece of mutant spaghetti, and as said Reapling continued to dodge as though the two were composing some sort of avant-garde dance routine together.

Colin shook his head at the peculiar scene. "…what am I even watching right now?"

Llyra chuckled. "…you mean you'd rather be at an assembly than watching a ghini and a reapling duke it out?"

As she spoke, the rogue tongue accidentally lashed a sconce off the wall, and it was flung against the hard stone with a racket as cringe-inducing as Llyra's attempts to play the Hyrule national anthem using nothing but her telescope and an Iron Shield.

"Hey, speaking of," Llyra whispered with a smirk, "do you think they can hear this racket in the assembly hall?"

" **gAnOn gOnNa nUuUuUuUuUkE tHe sChOoOoOoOoOoOoL!"** The Reapling was screeching as it dodged. " **hAaHha** **h **AaHha**** **h **AaHha!**** **"**

" **I'mmMmm gonnnNNaaA LLLicckkKkK ThhhHeee ffFFfibersSsss on thHhattt dellliccCcioussSss hooOoooD ofFf yyouUurrsSss heHehEheHehhEe!"** The ghini howled back in its deep rasp.

"You better hope they can't," Colin whispered back with a cringe.

"IRIS—!" Seres suddenly shrieked, as the Reapling U-turned sharply and lunged down upon them. "WATCH OU—"

The curved gleam of the scythe reflected in their eyes as it swung down on them again—and though Iris yanked them aside with another wobbly dodge (Colin felt at his head, paranoid his hair had been cut off), the stone floor beneath them was not so lucky; the Reapling's blade sliced a deep gash straight through it like a shark's fin parting the water.

Colin gulped down at the long, thin fissure in the floor as they glided above it. "…if we _are_ inside the school…I'm gonna hope there wasn't anything important in that room…"

"…uh, guys…?" Llyra stared behind her as their scythe-wielding maniac made its getaway down the hall back the way they'd came. "…we're going the wrong way you know…"

The witch grinned. "…oh no we're not!" Her foot padded the wood of their ride the way a horse hoof pads the ground before charging, and with an abrupt jerk the entire pitchfork sharply reversed direction such that the pitchfork's prongs led the way with Llyra's startled backside leading in front.

Colin wailed. "…oh no, I'm in front! I don't want to be in front! I'll die first!"

Llyra scowled. "I'M in front Colin, I'll die before you do!"

"…what's that?!" Iris cackled. "…we're not going fast enough, you say?" Her foot double stomped on the back end of the pitchfork, and the passengers shrieked as it shot them forward at double speed.

"Too fast…gonna die…!" Colin shrieked as the passage spat them backwards into the donut room they'd been circling in earlier, where Colin held fast to Llyra's arm with a face like he were about to puke out his chickaloo treenut butter.

"Would you stop squeezing my arm Colin?!" Llyra hissed, her eyes glued behind her to the Reapling's back which was enlarging at an alarming rate.

Iris had her shimmering eyes locked on their approaching prize. "Steady…steady…steady…!"

The ghostly monster and its pitchfork pursuer were winding higher and higher around the passage like two (very unusual looking) loftwings flying in a duet, and Iris leaned in as they closed the distance like competitors flying neck-and-neck in a race. "…closer…closer…YES!" At scarcely five yards behind, she bounced on the pitchfork's back end in glee. "GO ghini GO!"

As the ghini's tongue wooshed passed Llyra's shoulder again, Llyra glanced up to find that they'd circled so high, she could finally see the ever elusive ceiling. For one lousy instant the thought crossed her mind that they'd crash into the roof, but then her eye spied a narrow gap looping the inner edge of the ceiling. The Reapling appeared to notice it too; it made straight for it and dove in, but not before—to everyone's astonishment—they glimpsed the ghini tongue capture their target in a full body bind, in the final split-second before the Reapling disappeared from view.

Llyra gasped; behind her, Iris howled in triumph. "WE GOT HER WE GOT HER!"

Seres was shrieking too, but her voice was edged in panic as she eyed the closet-wide crevice they were being pulled towards like it were a ring of fire. "Iris, it's dragging us up through that gap! We'll crash!"

The witch cackled like this were just a typical part of pitchfork surfing she'd done a thousand times. "Hang tight everyone…" She crouched down and wrapped herself tightly around the pole. "…we're tilting sharply up at ninety degrees!"

"Wait WHAT—" Colin could scarcely fling his limbs tightly enough around the pole in time with everyone else as the pitchfork angled directly north and shot up through the gap (it was a good thing the pitchfork was inanimate, for surely it would've been strangled by Colin's grip were it alive).

To Colin's (extremely short lived) relief, they managed to power through the chink without bashing their craniums in—only to find themselves rocketing towards another ceiling right passed the chink's exit—and though Iris managed to slow the pitchfork and swerve aside to avoid any skull-hammering impact at the last second (Llyra's past experiences with skull hammers wasn't anything she needed repeated after all), their unprepared sides still collided against the overhead stone with just enough force for them to topple off the pitchfork all at once.

 _Thump._

The first thing Llyra felt was the cold greeting of the floor as she belly-flopped into it (why couldn't underground passageways be equipped with cushioned floors instead?!)— though it hit with such immediacy that she'd hardly felt any drop at all, and her eyes snapped open with the woozy delirium of a bulblin after getting thrown off a horse. Her befuddled senses then caught sight of the stupendously low ceiling above her head (it was no wonder they'd collided! There was no way the entire length of the pitchfork erected vertically would've fit under that height—heck even Llyra's attic didn't stoop _that_ low!) To add to her disoriented vision, the whole room itself, she realized, resembled the peculiar shape of a record disc—round and flat, with a disproportionately wide circumference in stark contrast to the low height. It appeared to have no outlets save for the two-foot wide gap they'd come through which circled the outer perimeter of the floor, as well as one other curious hole at the room's center that was encapsulated in glass from ceiling-to-floor.

Llyra could scarcely ponder the abnormalities of the room however, for as her eyes scanned passed her recovering peers sprawled across the floor like apples knocked off a tree, her attention was suddenly arrested by one lone thing, laying a mere few feet from her pounding head:

The spell book.

The sight of its open pages at arms length snapped her awake as though a cucco were hollering in her ear. On instinct, her fingers lunged for the mystic text as would a speedy floormaster's, and the desired text wound up stuffed into the mouth of her piggy bag before any wandering eye could take note. Her eyes next spied the scepter abandoned on the floor just shy of the room's center, and she scrambled to take possession of it the way keatons scramble to snatch loose rupees; it was only when her fingers came inches from clasping the cold handle that she finally noticed the monstrous shadow laying over it, and the dark presence she realized was hovering just above her head.

She swore to Din. Of course, luck would dictate she'd land herself in such a spot (though in her defense it was hard to think straight when your head was ringing like a castle bell)—but as her tense eyes flicked up to meet the dusky form towering overhead, she heaved a sigh of relief; Cherry the pesky Reapling was bound tight as skulltula webbing beneath the slimy cables of the ghini's tongue. To Llyra's surprise however, it seemed little bothered by its tethers, floating with an unperturbed smile devoid of any intent to fight (Llyra had to wonder for a moment whether the Reapling truly had inherited some of Cherry's scrambled brain during the transformation, for surely its ability to think had shrunk to the size of a beetle).

Since her friend in the hood seemed able to move little more than a Stone Head, Llyra's fingers stretched freely towards the wand once more—until a deep laugh from the Reapling suddenly rumbled down upon her head.

 **"…hHe-HeE-hHe-Hhe-hHe…"**

To Llyra's tight-wound nerves, its glowing crimson eyes seemed to smirk down on her hand hovering by the scepter's golden dragon head, almost as though it were amused at her taking possession of it.

 **"…GaNoN…gOnNa nUkE tHe sChOol…h** ** **He-HeE-hHe-Hhe-hHeEeEe** …"**

Llyra's brow twitched, and she glared up into its irksome grin. That skull face in a hood…it wasn't making fun of her?! No way that pea sized brain was knowingly taunting her knack to cause catastrophes, right?

In her moment's hesitation, the far-more reliable Iris sashéd passed and snatched her trusty weapon back. (Llyra cursed herself for getting outmaneuvered by that dancing travesty circus witch) She whirled her wand on their shackled guest (who was still busy smirking beneath its binds in the center of the room) with a grin that radiated so much triumph, Llyra almost wished she had a pair of sunglasses to block it out.

"THIS IS IT!" the witch howled, thrusting out her hip (because that was necessary), "THE CULMINATING MOMENT IN WHICH I TRIUMPH! YOU'RE SAVED NOW, BERRY!"

"… **yyouUu ungraaAatefullLl witchhHh…"** the ghini rasped from Phoeni's head. "… **I did allLll thHhe damnNned worrRrrk ssSso shoowWw sSssomMme resSsspectTtt…whippinnNng throOough thHe aaAair soOo lonNng alwayyYys makessSs mMmy tonNngue acHhe to beEe rrRrubbedDd in sSsome soooOootthHhinNng slimMmeEee…"**

Phoeni stroked her star monster pet as she lay on her knees. "You were great, Gino!"

Colin was stirring off the ground not far from Llyra, only he looked about as steady as a lizalfos after being hit in the face with an iron ball. "…what's happening…" he slurred, traipsing towards Llyra, "…is it over yet…?"

She gave his face a light smack and directed it towards their wand-spinning great witch. "…see for yourself!"

Iris the Great for once had everyone's undivided attention as she launched into her twirl which seemed to go on forever (despite being a mere second in length). "Control—Y—Retr…" she stopped, lowering the wand with a frown. "No wait, that's not right. At this juncture, I should cast the full spell for dramatic effect, don't you guys think—"

"IRIS!" Seres shouted up from the floor, momentarily abandoning her usual poise. "For the love of the goddesses, cease your monologue and cast the spell already!"

The witch cackled at her outburst like it'd come from just one of her many obsessed fans. "Right right, I shouldn't make my adoring audience wait now should I?" Instantly, she launched back into her arm-flailing, spin-kicking performance, and despite Llyra's derision at her inflated acrobatics (like those of her sugar-high five-year-old-neighbors on halloween) **,** she was all eyes as the witch finally struck her all-important pose, thrust out her wand, and spoke the fate-sealing words of the spell.

" **D-O-T-H ~ T-H-E ~ B-A-T-T-L-E ~ B-E ~ W-O-N ~ H-A-T-H ~ T-H-Y ~ S-P-E-L-L ~ B-E ~ U-N-D-O-N-E-!"**

No sooner had the words left her lips did a sequence of both good and bad things happen in rapid-fire succession.

First—Cherry The Reapling managed to wriggle just one lone hand free of her binds—though that was all she needed for her to take up her bladed weapon of massive size (Llyra momentarily wondered whether she could hold up such a great weapon herself) and with one grand stroke sliced down into the floor, leaving behind a deep, glowing purple gash.

Second—Iris's spell was a smashing hit. Ms. Cherry the red-eyed Reapling was instantly enveloped in a sizzling show of green lights akin to the one that had birthed her. However, though the Reapling's convulsing metamorphosis would've normally been an arresting show, the attention of the lot was quickly drawn by something else:

The purple gash in the floor had dilated the way the eye of a sleeping dragon suddenly busts open when disturbed, and it was gorging away at the floor like a toxic sludge widening a wound. To boot, staring down through the hole revealed nothing but a deep dark abyss, inviting instant panic among the young knights.

Colin was the first to show off his legendary screaming abilities as he scrambled back from the approaching hole like a torch slug with its flame gone out. "IT'S A PORTAL TO THE UNDERWORLD! WE'RE GOING TO HELLLLLLL!"

Seres, the wisest pumpkin head in Hyrule called upon her good old fashioned praying. "…may the goddesses have mercy upon our souls…preferably within the next thirty seconds if possible…"

Llyra the optimist was per usual cursing her good luck as the words of one of those halloween brats from ages ago gallivanted through her head once more. "… _their scythes can even slice open holes into the underworld!"_ She grit her teeth. Of course it had to be that the one thing those guys didn't make up was a Reapling's ability to open a portal to somewhere less sunny than her basement back home!

In the midst of the chaos, Iris the Great was too busy laughing in triumph at the success of her spell to be swept in by the panic overtaking the others—for in the center of the room above the deteriorating floor, the bright jade fireworks show was working wonders on de-transforming the red-eyed smirk of the ragged, hooded being back to the broken, blue eyed robot it had once been.

"HAHAAA YOU SEE THAT?!" Her voice burst with jubilance. "I DID IT I DID IT! WAIT TILL MAPLE HERE'S ABOUT THIS! YOU'RE SAVED, BERRY! I, THE GREAT WITCH IRIS SAVED THE DAY—"

"—IRIS—! A scream suddenly rang from the usually quietest of the bunch—Phoeni. "—HEEEEELP—!"

In that moment, the emerald light of the spell faded as Cherry was fully reverted to her broken headed self….…broken and thus unable to fly. Wound tight as she was by the ghini's tongue, Cherry's giant mech weight could only plummet straight down into the abyss—and the unfortunate Phoeni whose hair remained one with the ghini could only be dragged in after her by pull of the tongue.

"I'VE GOT YOU!" Iris shrieked, lunging after her.

Within a two second span of high-speed chaos, a string of near simultaneous events occurred, starting with Iris grabbing hold of Phoeni's ankles, only to be overtaken by the weight and sucked towards the hole herself. As Iris howled for backup, Seres threw her own arms around the witch's knees, only to follow suite in losing her footing (Cherry would be no lightweight in a wrestling ring, that was for sure).

"…why me…?" Colin whined as he joined the queue, grabbing hold of Seres. He and Llyra exchanged identical looks of panic as he was dragged towards the hole, and an instant conversation passed between their eyes.

 _We're all falling down there, aren't we?_

 _Yeah…but at least we're all going down together, right?_

Despite only half registering what she was doing, Llyra lunged in and grabbed ahold of him—but as predicted, the weight remained too much for her to anchor down.

Finally, her foot slipped passed the edge of the floor, and the entire mad chain of them went tumbling into the depths below.

o | O | o

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 **NEXT ::** Chapter 08—The Pumpkin, The Ghini, and The Witch (Part III/III)

* * *

 **A Long Author's Note:**

 _This chapter...oh this chapter._

 _So, this story was put on an uninentional hiatus for the past few months, thanks to the ordeals I had with this chapter here. Honestly, I've lost count of how many times I surgically cut up and rewrote this chapter in perpetual frustration of just not being happy with it. Eventually I hit a point of writer's block...or more like, reviser's block if that's a thing, and had to put it aside for a while because I just couldn't stand looking at it anymore. I was able to tackle it again after a decent break, and this is the result, finally, after much longer a break than I would've liked._

 _This chapter made me realize a few important things. First, I know now I don't like writing chapters with too much idle dialogue (even though I like dialogue!) Since 2/3 of this (rather long despite being cut down a lot) chapter is spent on idle conversations that are amusing but unfortunately also slow the plot, it makes maintaining a good pace seem practically impossible, and yet still I felt the conversations were somewhat necessary enough that I couldn't outright cut them completely. The result is a chapter I felt was heavy on amusing conversation, but too light on plot progression in the first 2/3, and well all the action is concentrated in the last third of the chapter. I also am not so happy about how much this chapter kind of feels disconnected from the main plot, and yet I still needed this chapter to happen to move the story along. I am also rather sick of my dissatisfaction with this chapter holding up the story in general, because I have so many better chapters planned ahead that I want to get to! So, here it is, despite the remaining pacing issues it may have._

 _ _I anticipate that this will probably go down as my least favorite chapter from now until the end of the story. Nonetheless, I do think this chapter has come along way, and my hope is that it was still fun to read despite the slowish pace around the mid-section! (Also, my overworked head is open to fresh thoughts on improving this chapter if you happen to have any! I've already sliced it up so many times, what's another round!)__

 _A few interesting notes about the revisions this chapter underwent—even though it's still long now, at one point this chapter was almost double the length. There was this whole tangent I wrote during the section where Colin gets stunned in which Iris and Llyra ended up summoning a bunch of monsters and Colin almost drowned in a sandpit, got wrapped in skulltula threads, almost eaten by a lanmola and then swallowed whole by a giant deku baba, but I decided it was too much (and also Colin didn't deserve that much trauma on his first day, haha) and plus it was just lengthening the chapter so much without contributing in terms of plot progression. Rather than that, I think the beehive on Colin's head was enough time spent with him stunned._

 _Also, the last 1/4 of this chapter I split off into the next coming chapter just because this one was already too lengthy. So, the next chapter is really meant as the final section of this one. As of right now it's a lot shorter, though it may grow a bit once I develop it (that usually tends to happen every time I underestimate a chapter) I still don't anticipate it being long like this one, which is a good thing. Ideally, I want to write shorter chapters at more regular intervals—If I don't hit another giant roadblock like this chapter was, I'll be striving for a pace of a new chapter every two weeks._

 _Another note- the end of this chapter makes it seem like we're veering into a huge side escapade that's moving further away from the plot, but I promise that isn't the case—there will be a course correction next chapter that will return focus to the plot rather quickly. Oh, and more NPCs coming too!_

 _Speaking of, I realize a few rather obscure NPCs were introduced this chapter. To make things easier, starting from this chapter on, I'm going to include a character roster at the bottom with a quick indication of new characters and where they originate. So in this chapter here:_

 _ **Seres** —A Link Between Worlds_  
 _ **Iris** —Four Swords Adventures_  
 _ **Phoeni** —Skyward Sword (well, uh, kinda. At least her hand was. Haha.)  
 **Pumpkin Head**_ _—Oracle of Ages_

 _Iris actually comes from my favorite level in FSA (Village of the Blue Maiden), where she accidentally magicks some poor girl's house into the dark world, leaving her boyfriend wondering where she and her house went, and Iris can't undo it because she lost her spell book. Phoeni appears in SS as just a white gloved hand, so I decided to expand her into a character. Gino the ghini is actually a reference to Gina the ghini from The Minish Cap, who may appear at a later time. This story is going to have a wide range of NPCs, so you'll see both obscure characters and really common ones together (in fact, I've got a really common character joining up very soon!)_

 _Now then, feel free to share thoughts!_

/~/ Farosie


	8. The Pumpkin The Ghini & The Witch (III)

_._

 **Ch 08—The Pumpkin, The Ghini, and The Witch (Part III/III)**  
 **-:-:-{** Vol 01— The Knightly Way Thoust Finds an Assembly **}-:-:-**

* * *

In Llyra's experience, free falling through the sky could normally be a delightfully refreshing way to start her particularly groggy mornings (au contraire to any disapproving onlookers). After all, nothing could infuse her with quite as much lively spirit in the morning as having Zeffa fly her around the island three thousand feet in the air, accidentally drop her from that distance into the great sea (this happened enough times that she'd come to expect it), and finally dive after and catch her again at the last second.

However, being as Zeffa wasn't here to break her fall, and being as she was plummeting down a dark hole straight into what was likely some version of the underworld, her free fall—she had to admit—wasn't feeling as refreshing as per usual.

Not that she had time to think this for long—one moment she was nosediving with the wind whipping passed her hair, and the next, something flew passed her ears, and then—YANK—she was being wrenched back the way she'd come by a sudden pull from Colin's ankles as she held tight to them—only for that pull to end abruptly, and leave her…dangling in the middle of nowhere?

Tentatively, she cracked open an eye and raised her head—above her, the last-second human chain that the five of them had formed hung suspended in midair (Colin, looking like he'd swallowed a horde of sky stag beetles during the drop; Seres showing off her mad praying skills as she clutched Iris's swaying foot; Iris beaming like she'd been riding a rickety coaster; and Phoeni hanging dazed like a stunned peahat.) They were a sight to behold, but Llyra's gawk was centered on that which held them up; shooting out from the top of Phoeni's hair was a familiar tongue that stretched up up up in the far distance, all the way back to the hole they had fallen through, where it concluded itself in a knot around a long pole that was just barely covering the length of the hole. … _wait a minute_ , Llyra thought, squinting at the pole, wasn't that Iris's pitchfork?! She balked—that blasted tongue must've unwound itself from Cherry and shot up to anchor itself on the nearest fixture in the nick of time!

"…have I ever mentioned…" Colin gulped staring up at the hole, "…how much I love ghinis?"

Llyra scowled. "…don't you DARE let go you crazy ghini!" She squeezed Colin's ankles. Dangling a thousand feet or so down below a ceiling from a pitchfork was NOT her idea of a decent rescue by any means (and that'd better be one sturdy pitchfork holding them up!)

Phoeni was stroking the top of her head with an appreciative grin, despite the less-than-comfortable force on her head. "Niiiiice Gino, good Gino! I'll give you a yummy corduroy treat later!"

"…oh holy Nayru…" Seres was whispering, "…forgive me for the times that I ignored father's advice not to model for strange painters, and for the time that I disobeyed Dampe and went into the Skull Woods to play with blupees, and also for the time that I lost captain's hat while trying to save bird eggs from being stolen in the Scablands—"

"—why do you keep praying to the goddesses?" Llyra cut in. "It's not like they're gonna bust out of the ceiling to give us a hand!"

"L-let's not talk about the ceiling busting, please!" Colin whined. "M-my nerves weren't built for this sort of thing, you know?!" He gasped. "I mean, right now…a ghini's tongue and a witch's pitchfork are literally the only things between us and the…the underworld below!"

"…uh, Colin?" Llyra frowned, staring out at their surroundings. "If this is the underworld, then why do I see a giant golden spiral staircase surrounding us?"

Colin's eyes were still squeezed shut. "Um….stairway to hell?"

"…and why do I see tall banners with the Hyrule royal insignia on them…?"

He frowned. "…maybe there's a…Hyrule fanclub in hell…?"

"…uh-huh, and I suppose the underworld is filled with carvings of the goddesses above every balcony on every floor as well…?"

Finally, Colin snapped open his eyes and gasped.

Though the tangled chain of them were indeed dangling midair in the center of a huge abyss-like space, there was—two hundred feet or so out from them in each direction—a staircase spiraling down from above and descending passed them into the depths below. Royal banners hung at intervals overhead marking every hundred steps or so—and at every two hundred steps, the stairs leveled off at a circular mezzanine that connected back into the current floor.

"…c-can it be…we're still in the Academy?!" Colin choked out in glee.

"…yeah, lucky us," Llyra drawled, "instead of dangling almost dead in an abyss in the underworld, we're dangling almost dead in an abyss in the Academy, thanks to somebody's brilliant idea to build one!" She glared down at the stack of balconies disappearing into view below her (just how many floors was this school?!) If she survived, she was gonna have a looong talk with whoever built this dinforsaken place.

Plus, the throbbing of her head certainly wasn't helping matters as she tried to resist staring straight down into the looming darkness peeking in from the peripheral vision of her eye. (According to Joel, there was a rule that looking down somehow always brought out the worst in a situation. At least, it seemed to be pretty true when they'd tested his theory by looking down into a pincer's hole.)

 **"…A-A-A-ACADEMYYYYY….CUCCOS…ON THE S-S-SSCHOOL BOARRRRRRRD…"** A familiar glitchy feminine voice echoed from below her feet, and at this, Llyra couldn't help but finally peek down all the way—and let loose a high pitched squawk.

Just ten feet or so below Llyra, Cherry's mechanical form was draping by the wires of her neck—though it was not Cherry's midair wreck that had made Llyra shriek, but instead the glistening form that had caught her fall; a golden statue of a hylian shield, connected to what was situated only six feet or so beneath Llyra's dangling sandals—the tip of a sharp golden blade twinkling up at her flailing soles.

Llyra swore to Din. Of all times for Joel's rules to apply to a situation—this was just PERFECT!

As the throbbing her head seemed to increase, she suddenly wondered how a blade could be floating in space like that…and that's when she noticed, it wasn't floating at all—it was being held up by a motionless golden statue arm, which rose above a familiar shaped golden pointed hat, which was set on an all-too familiar cut of golden hair…

She screamed so loud, Colin thought his eardrums would burst.

"WHAT NOW?!" Colin shrieked, forgetting his own resolve not to look down. "Don't tell me—miniblins are crawling up from the pit to drag us to the next world?!" He peeked down and a yelp escaped his own throat at the sight of the sword poised below Llyra's feet—but his expression changed once he took in the golden figure holding it up.

"Wait a minute…" His cheeks were starting to flush like wild berries. "L-lyra…! It's a statue of…! A statue of Li…Li…" He kicked his feet, and Llyra head the pleasure of being unceremoniously swung along with them.

"COLIN!" She growled, strangling his ankles. "This is not the time for one of your fanboy freakouts! Stop rocking the line!"

"I knew it, I knew it!" He gushed, "I knew there had to be a statue of him in the Academy!" His eyes darted up to the balcony across from them, and he gasped. "Wait a minute, I think I know where we are! This whole space…it must be under the central Rotunda—I saw it on the map earlier! Which means…we've got to be right at the centerpoint of the Academy!"

"FASCINATING Colin," Llyra snarled, "that's just what I needed to know five minutes before my untimely death!" She glowered down at the infamous statue. Of course, of all the terrors that could've been awaiting her fall, a golden sculpture of a certain somebody with his sword pointed skywards at her, on an isolated island rising out of the space from down below just HAD to be what fate had in store. (Why couldn't there have been a cozy kargarok's nest under her or something instead?)

Colin didn't seem fazed. "No—this is a good thing Llyra, a good thing!" He was staring out at the floor balcony they were most level with. "This is a prime location in school! All these balconies probably fill up between classes…you know? If someone were to happen by here right now, they could get us help!"

The vacant balconies met his words with dead silence.

Llyra glowered. "…and if nobody comes by…then what do we do, Colin? What then?!"

He gulped. "…umm…we panic?!"

Iris cackled down from her perch in the chain above them. "What are you all freaking out for? Heh, amateurs…" She adjusted her trusty Hytopian silk witch hat with her free hand. "Why, this is a normal situation for a witch of my caliber! Everything's fine see, I'll just use my wand and…huh?" The lazy grin on her face faded as her hand felt around for her scepter, and felt nothing but the un-silky fabric of her clothes. "…my wand…where is it?!" Her face turned paler than a ghini's. "WHERE'S MY WAND?!"

Llyra scowled as the little witch began flailing at the top of the line like a hooked Hylian Pike trying to jump off a fishing line. If only Llyra had snatched the wand up in that moment she'd had the chance! It was too late now.

Iris was still moaning, "…MAPLE'S GONNA KILL ME WHEN SHE FINDS OUT I LOST HER…I MEAN MY WAND!"

Llyra glowered up at her. "…well if it makes you feel any better, she can't kill you if you're already dead!"

"Stop jinxing us Llyra!" Colin gasped. "W-we gotta…gotta stay optimistic. Someone could come by any moment and save us!

"Oh and what are we supposed to do until then, hang tight?"

"…w-was that a pun…?" He wailed, clutching Seres's leg.

They all hung there in a moment of uncomfortable silence.

"…so," Colin broke in when he couldn't stand the tension anymore. "…now that we're stuck here….…why aren't you three at the assembly again?" He craned his head up towards the three above him with a strained grin.

Iris reciprocated with a doubly wide grin of her own."Ah so you're curious about the events of my morning leading up this point, I see I see… well since you insist on hearing about the details of my life, I shall inform you. It all started early this morning…"

Llyra groaned. "Now you've done it Colin, she's about to go on a monologue!"

"…I first got here about two hours ago." Iris began.

Llyra frowned. "Isn't that like…four in the morning? The school wasn't open two hours ago!"

Iris cackled. "That's right, I, Iris, was the first to arrive here at school! I was FIRST! I beat everyone else! HAHAHAHAHA!"

"…hey…" Llyra whispered up to Colin, "…she brags like a Goron after winning a wrestling match, don't you think?"

"…yeah, she's even more of a braggart than you are, Llyra."

Llyra cast him a sore look. "…what?! I'm not like that, am I?!"

Colin returned her look with a pointed one of his own. She bit her lip.

"…I got here _so_ early," Iris jabbered on, "that the Academy was still locked up! I mean sure, that was partly because I didn't realize my watch was an hour ahead, but even that must have been fate's way of making sure I arrived long before anyone else, don't you think?

"But you know," she prattled on before anyone could answer, "At the time I hadn't realized how early I was, and found it odd that the doors were shut tight and the lights were all off. That's why I did what any sensible witch would do in that situation…"

"…you flew home and went back to sleep because it was four in the morning?" Llyra droned.

"…no no obviously, I got out my wand and used several dozen spells (since the first dozen I tried didn't work) to bust in through the front door!"

"…yeah, obviously," Llyra muttered.

"…Exactly. Now, imagine my surprise when I got inside and began stalking those dim halls with my wand illuminated, only to find the entire place deserted!"

"…how shocking," Llyra drawled.

"…so, you really can't blame me—considering the place looked as abandoned as a ghost town—for coming to the natural conclusion that everyone had been abducted and taken to another dimension! (It's happened before I tell you, at my last school!)"

"…uh-huh." Llyra glanced up at Colin, who looked glad they weren't at her last school, wherever that was.

"…and you really gotta commend me for not running away in that situation! The abductors could've still been around after all, lurking anywhere in the shadows of these halls—lucky I wasn't scared! (A witch of my caliber is the one that does the scaring after all—not the other way around!) And so, like any great witch, I took charge of the situation with an absolutely _brilliant_ plan to gather the information I needed and figure out just what had happened to everyone!" She paused, smoothing her hat as they stared uncomfortably up at her. "…that's right—I broke into all the main offices and searched every last drawer for clues to their whereabouts!"

Llyra snorted; Colin gaped up at her. "…you did WHAT?!"

The witch sighed. "Too bad I didn't find anything relevant (though I did find a rather interesting moon totem in one of the offices) but soon I realized my REAL mistake—that I'd been searching the wrong locations! After all, if there was one location in the Academy the culprits had to be holed up at, it'd have to be…"

"…The library?" Colin ventured.

"…The Cathedral?" The pumpkin head chimed.

"…The monstrology lab?" Phoeni murmured.

"…The Dining hall?" Llyra drawled, wondering when she'd last eaten.

Iris snapped her fingers. "…the central security office! You know, the one that operates all of the Academy's camera systems and locks and everything? They must've hijacked the room and shut the school down from in there! That's why I—"

"—don't tell me…" Llyra gasped as her mind connected the dots before Iris could finish. "… _YOU_ busted into the security office?! _YOU'RE_ the reason the cameras and door switches are down?!"

Iris frowned. "Hey, I was trying to save everyone—I thought the culprits had taken over by shutting down the entire security system, and it needed a souped-up jolt from a witch scepter to get it started again!"

Llyra suddenly burst into a fit of laughter at the bottom of the chain.

Colin frowned down at her "…I don't think it's funny Llyra."

Iris scowled. "I wish the school staff had found it as funny! You should've seen their faces when they burst into the office—you'd've thought I'd been roasting their children on a stick! (I swear, that Headmaster and his long white beard need to get a sense of humor!) He and his cranky pals should've been grateful for my valiant efforts to protect the school—but no, what do I get for trying to save them from abduction? A long lecture about properly knightly etiquette (which I didn't need by the way) and even worse—my wand confiscated!"

Llyra raised a brow. "…but you _have_ your wand…" she frowned. "…I mean, you _had_ your wand."

"Oh no _, that_ wand…" Iris shook her head. "…I _borrowed_ it from my cousin. It was too good for her anyway…I mean, _just_ because she's Granny Syrup's apprentice, and _just_ because she's an upperclassman, they think _she's_ the better witch?!" She groaned. "I can't understand why they _insisted_ on calling her in this morning to baby sit me, especially since she ditched me in the assembly hall alone anyway (and for goddesses know what reason…she'd rather fly around on her flashy vacuum cleaner than spend five minutes watching me after all)—"

"…wait wait wait, that's all they did?" Colin's eyes were bright with shock. "I mean, you broke into the school, wrecked all the main offices and blew up all the school's security and all they did was call your cousin in, and confiscate your wand?"

"…uh, actually…" Iris frowned, adjusting her grip on Phoeni's leg. "…they said my punishment would be determined later since they were too busy preparing for the opening assembly…"

Llyra and Colin exchanged frowns.

"…and you're not worried you'll be…I dunno, expelled?" Llyra finished.

"…expelled…me?! HAH!" The witch cackled, though she inadvertently squeezed harder on Phoeni's foot. "Don't be silly! I mean…so what if the security system and all the cameras went down this morning, what harm has _that_ done anyone?"

"Gee, I dunno…" Llyra stared down at the sword tip glistening beneath her as she clung to Colin's foot. "…maybe the fact that the security cameras are off, RIGHT NOW, meaning that no one who'd normally be in the security office watching us dangle here, about to die, RIGHT NOW, _might_ be causing us a problem, don't you think?"

"It _is_ a shame…" Iris nodded her head, "…that no camera will be able to catch this on film—Imagine how great a pictograph we'd make in the yearbook! (I daresay all the other students would be jealous!)"

"…actually…" Phoeni interjected from the top of the line. "…it would be pretty humiliating to be seen like this, don't you think? I'm kinda glad there isn't a crowd watching us…"

"…forgive me for pointing this out but…" the pumpkin head added, "…I still feel rather humiliated with the eyes of Her Highness upon us like this…"

"…what're you talking about Eres?"

Seres was staring at the wall behind them, and they all rotated their heads to catch the subject of her gaze.

They yelped all at once; curving along the wall at their backs was a portrait taller than the entire length of them combined—and staring out from it were the judgmental eyes of Queen Zelda XIV.

Llyra scowled. Judging from the way her nose looked more like a hookshot, and the way her hair looked more like a medusa head, this "portrait" had to be the work of the same artist that had painted Ganondorf as a fire-breathing potato head. "You call that a portrait of Queen Zelda?! She's got three eyeballs!"

Iris gave her standard witchy cackle. "Why, it's a rather inspired work if you ask me…even an improvement over the Queen's normal face!"

"Hush Iris…!" Seres scolded, "…don't say that in front of Her Highness! She could be listening from somewhere!"

"…I doubt it," Llyra drawled, her voice echoing in solitude across the abyss. "Nobody here but us…" she scowled down at the statue below her. "…at least until we fall to our deaths."

Colin wailed in his usual knightly composure. "…Ohhhhh why did I have to get up this morning?!" He frowned up at Queen Zelda's piercing eyes. "…I'm so sorry father….all I wanted to do was go to the assembly like a good student!"

"Oh shut up Colin!" Llyra bit from below him. "You're not the one six feet from getting impaled by a statue…of someone you can't stand! (Care to switch places?!)"

As if on cue, the ghini tongue's grip on the pitchfork slipped ever so slightly, lurching the entire hanging chain of them two feet lower alongside a collective shriek.

"…four feet. That's four feet from getting impaled!" Llyra gasped, her head throbbing louder than over.

"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!" Colin screamed, loud as his knightly lungs could roar.

"Guys, hey guys!" Phoeni piped up. "Look up there!"

She pointed to a fifty-foot concave glass wall several balconies up; though it was elevated a significant distance above where they hung, they could still glimpse empty tables beyond the glass, accompanied by an array of ebony bookshelves on either side; Llyra could safely assume they were peering into the library (though twas a far spiffier one than any she'd ever seen—at the library back home, thieving rats scurried beneath the floorboards, and the shelves would collapse as soon as you took a book off the shelf!) Phoeni's excitement was however aimed at a lone girl that was standing before one of the shelves—though her back was turned, and they could only see a hint of two red pigtails sticking out the back of her head.

"…I think that's my cousin who dropped me off this morning!" Phoeni reached out her hand, as if willing the girl to turn around. "KARANE! HEY KARANE!" She screeched at the glass wall; the girl didn't budge.

Iris cleared her throat. "Let me show you how it's done." She took a deep breath and unleashed her witchy roar. "CAWWWW—RAWWWWWWWW—NAAAAAAAAAYYY!"

"…she can't hear you," Llyra drawled, watching the girl's back as she disappeared from view around a shelf, book in hand.

"…or she ignored us on PURPOSE!" Iris growled. "How dare she ignore a great witch! Why, if I had my wand, I'd turn her into a toad or a….…bird…?" She trailed off at the distinct sound of flapping in the distance above her head.

That's when a broad pair of wings swooped into the chasm from a higher floor seemingly out of nowhere, and they stared up at it in puzzlement; circling above their heads was the umber body of a mighty owl.

As Llyra wondered what this owl was doing within school walls (and why it was taller than herself), Colin gasped. "HEY—I think that's Kaepora, Vice Headmaster Gaebora's owl! That means—we're saved! We can just talk to the owl, and he'll go tell the Vice Head to get us help!"

"Oh gee Colin," Llyra drawled, "I didn't know you could speak _owl_ , why don't you show us how it's done?"

"I speak owl!" Iris beamed. "Leave it to me!" She cleared her throat, blind to the round of winces below her. "WHO-WHO-WHO-WHO-WHOOOOOOOO!" Iris hooted. "That's a customary owl greeting, it means _'Feel free to perch yourself on my head.'_ "

"…right," Llyra drawled, watching as the owl dove passed her and the rest of them to land instead on the far more inviting golden hatted figure beneath Llyra's dangling feet. "HOOT HOOT!" Kaepora cawed up. "WHAT CHILDREN YOU ARE HERE DOWN FOR HANGING?"

"He speaks Hylian!" Colin gasped.

"….not sure I'd say that, exactly…" Llyra murmured.

"Please, can you help us?!" Colin hollered down to the owl.

Kaepora craned his head. "HOOT HOOT! WOULD LIKE TO YOU REPEAT THE ME YOU QUESTION?"

Colin frowned and glanced at Llyra; she shrugged. "…CAN. YOU. HELP. US!" He hollered as though the owl were an ancient tree decrepit of hearing.

"HOOT HOOT! WOULD LIKE TO YOU REPEAT THE ME YOU QUESTION?"

"…YES!" Colin bellowed again, "I said, HELP PLEASE?!"

The owl nodded. "HOOT HOOT! WHAT CHILDREN YOU ARE HERE DOWN FOR HANGING?"

Llyra scowled. "Great, the owl's senile."

"…allow me," Iris cut in, clearing her throat. "…EXCUSE WE TO HELP BALCONY NEED ME THE GETTING! ASSISTANCE YOUR PLEASE!"

To this nonsense sentence, Kaepora nodded his head. "HOOT HOOT! SWING I IF BALCONY CAN PLEASE YOU TO THE YOU? BY UP FAULT WHOSE BUT WIND DOWN DID YOU HERE?"

Llyra stared down at the owl with a frown. This creature garbled its sentences more than her grandpa did after downing ten gallons of milk!

 **"…F-F-FAULT…"**

A certain bot's effeminate voice startled Llyra, drifting up from below the owl, and she glanced down in surprise at the robotic wreck dangling from the golden shield.

 **"…F-FAULT…TO…THE….M-MEAN SPIRITED…GHOST…"** Cherry managed to sputter suddenly from the remains of her brilliant intellect.

The owl craned its head down at the robot, as though nothing were particularly strange about this. "HOOT HOOT! CHERRY YOU THAT IS? ARE THIS UP ALL SAYING CAUSED YOU THERE THAT GHINI GHOST?"

 **"…P-PUNISH…THE….BAD…GHOST…"** Cherry responded sensibly.

Colin frowned at Llyra. "Hey…" he whispered, "…is this an actual conversation right now?" She shrugged.

 **"…eXcCuuuuuuUuusSse mMmeeeEeee…"** the ghostly entity in Phoeni's hair suddenly rasped out. **"…tthHeEe rRrrobOttt wWwithh thHe disSstaaSstefull mMmetall mmoOutTthh beEelowWw spewWws onNnllyy lieesSs…onnNnly a cCrreeAattuUurre of inFferRrior innNntTeLLeCcT wwoOuldd lisSstteenNn tOo sSuchHhh nonNsenssSseee…but I ssSssupPposSseee I shouldDdnNn'tt be surRrprissSsed by thHheee igGgnorRranNnccee of a birrRrdd whhoOo wWwoOulddd weeaAarrRr sSsuccCchhh lowWw grRradDdeee furRr ovVerrrr itsSs winNnggsSss…"**

Phoeni tried to see passed her eyebrows to catch a glimpse of the ghostly being on her head. "…wow Gino, how can you talk with your tongue literally knotted?"

He didn't have the chance to answer however, for the owl of inferior fur suddenly swooped off its perch and dove right up at the stretch of ghini's tongue dangling above Phoeni's head, such that the entire chain of junior knights suspended below were without warning swung approximately ten feet or so out across the space like a giant pendulum.

"AAAAAAAAH!" Colin's screech was the loudest, naturally. "We're sorry Kaepora, the ghini didn't mean to insult your fur! He'll apologize! You'll apologize, won't you?! Please apologize!"

"CRAZY OWL!" Iris shouted up at the great bird (while Seres prayed furiously to the Queen's portrait). "KNOCK IT OFF!"

Llyra though had other thoughts pounding through her head (aside from flashbacks of the time Zeffa had nearly dropped her into the Swamp of Evil), watching as the nearest mezzanine swung in closer, then further, then closer again in one continuous taunting loop…

"This is it…" Colin whined, casting a motionsick glance down at Llyra. "…well, it was nice knowing you for the past morning—"

"—COLIN!" Llyra whipped towards him with the fiery grin of a meteo wizzrobe. "I GOT AN IDEA! We need to swing MORE!"

He crinkled his brows. "Why?! You want to die faster?!"

She responded by propelling her weight with as much extra momentum as she could at the end of each pendulum swing—to Colins mounting horror.

"Listen, everyone!" Llyra shouted. "If we swing far enough, we can reach the balcony and jump to safety!"

"Are you insane—you want to JUMP?!" Colin was looking as hysterical as a moblin with it's butt on fire at this point.

"BRILLIANT!" Iris beamed down in approval. "I wonder why I didn't think of it myself!" She cackled up at Kaepora, who—for better or worse—was still headbutting into the tongue like a helmasaurus. "That's right…keep it up you senile owl!"

"…uh, guys?" Phoeni called, staring up at their anchorpoint in the far distance above her head. "…remember that pitchfork holding us up…? It's…kinda rolling towards the wider part of the hole so…if we keep rocking the line like this…it might fall—"

"—Everyone, on the count of three!" Llyra interrupted. "…we jump together!"

At this point, the pendulum of flailing knights had swung so far back that Llyra's feet could kick themselves off from the portrait of the Queen behind her (or from the Queen's fish-hook nostrils, to be exact). "…ONE!"

Colin looked so pale, he almost could've passed for a Freezor. "W-wait, I'm not ready!"

"TWO!"

They were speeding towards the banister now—Llyra's head was thumping up a storm as she saw the railing fast approaching beneath her, and she parted her lips to say, "THR—"

 _Snap._

The weight above them dropped, and Llyra was forced to jump prematurely as she realized in that split second that the pitchfork holding them up must've tumbled through the hole.

 _Thump._

For the second time in the passed fifteen minutes, Llyra's tummy had the pleasure of being reunited with the un-cushioned floor. She groaned—though it was half in relief that she had successfully _found_ the floor (as compared to the alternative).

For a moment, she lay like that with her cheek against the ground, as content as a hearty snail in the sand at the beach—despite the persistent throbbing of her head. (As much as she loved flying death-defyingly high through the air, being on the ground certainly had its perks—like not being dead, for example.)

The sound of wings overhead stirred Llyra up. "….see, I told you guys my plan would….…work…?" She stared up as Kaepora descended with the ghini's tongue lodged firmly in its beak, supporting all of Phoeni, Iris, and Seres who were still dangling from the line.

Llyra frowned. Okay…maybe the plan _hadn't_ worked so well…but at least they'd all made it in one piece, right?

Upon being released from the owl's grip, the ghini's intensely long (and rather fatigued) tongue coiled itself back into the ghini's mouth like a retracting yo-yo—and at it's end, the beat-up pitchfork that had been enduring their weight all that time was finally drawn back; the ghini dropped it in Iris's open palm before the last of its tongue disappeared in mouth, accompanied by a long, hearty belch.

As Phoeni stroked her pet ghini, Iris rubbed her beat up pitchfork and stared up at her owl savior, shaking her head. "…Alright fine, I take it back! You're not such a crazy owl after all!" She cracked a grin, patting the owl's fur. "Hey…want to be my familiar? (I lost my last one in a portal to the dark world…)"

Kaepora stared at the pitchfork in her hands—and a split second later had snatched it up in its beak and soared off with it down the hall.

"—HEY!" Iris shrieked, charging off after the owl. "I TAKE IT BACK, YOU'RE SENILE AFTER ALL, CRAZY OWL! GIVE ME BACK MY PITCHFORK!"

"Iris—wait!" The pumpkin head and her hooded companion scurried after her, and together the lot of them disappeared down the hall out of sight.

Llyra stared in a daze at the spot where they'd vanished, momentarily wondering whether to follow, but something else was nagging at her—something important she seemed to be forgetting…

Colin's motionsick face suddenly flashed through her head, and a gasp burst from her throat. That IDIOT, where was he?! She scrambled off the floor, head throbbing, heart thumping and eyes darting in all directions for any sign of his missing mushroom cut hair. She'd _told_ that cowering fool to jump! What if he'd managed to botch the job and had gone tumbling ten thousand leagues down into the abyss?!

"…Llyra…" a familiar wail floated into her ears, and she whirled around exhaling in deep relief. "COLIN! Thank Farore you're alr…" She trailed off, staring up at his unexpected savior—a familiar robot whom (despite her head dangling sideways off her shoulders) still alighted gently as a dove holding a rather bleary-eyed Colin, whom was set down on his quaking corduroy boots.

Though his twitching knees could barely keep from breaking under him, he clapped the robot's metal shoulder appreciatively. "Th…thanks, Cherry…you're s-such a g-good r-robot…s-sorry we damaged your head…" he managed to stutter out. The infamous green hat was still stuffed over Cherry's suspended head, and he slipped it off, smoothing it in his hands. "P-poor hat…we've both been through so much this morning…haven't we?"

"Nevermind the hat—" Llyra cut in, grabbing it out of his hands and speedily stuffing it away in her bag before he could protest. "—what about Cherry! She…she _caught_ you and flew you down to the ground, didn't she?! Maybe that means…she's not so broken after all!" A glint of hope shone in Llyra's eye as she picked up Cherry's dangling head and placed it back ontop of her shoulders.

Naturally, it slid right off a moment later, and a piece of Cherry's ear also sprung out the side of her head.

 **"…C-C-AWLIN AND OR-RIELLE…GONN-NA…N-NUKE THE S-SCHOO-OOL…"** the robot sputtered out in reprise.

Llyra winced in a painful moment of deja-vu. "…okay, guess not."

Suddenly Colin yelped and leapt back from Llyra, eyes dilated like an eyegore's. "LLYRA—! There's…something in your hair!"

Llyra raised a brow. "…what is it, a walltula?" she crossed her arms. "Colin, I told you, I'm not afraid of walltulas, and you shouldn't be either—"

He reached into her hair and lifted whatever it was from the very spot on her head that Llyra realized had been throbbing the entire time she'd been dangling above the statue.

They both stared at the golden dragon head that was peering back from the rod in Colin's grip; he was holding the missing witch wand.

o | O | o

Although Llyra and Colin's mutual return to the squeaky clean floors of the Academy was—on the one hand—a relief after their side trip through whatever sideways-underground passage they'd had the fortune of stumbling headfirst into (especially after almost having their heads disconnected from their necks on more than one occasion), along with their return to the school's grandly lit hallways also came the pile of even grander wrecks they'd left behind, the entirety of which was sure to send them on a one-way trip to punishment city by the time class rolled around—one particular wreck of which was idling right next to them with her busted electronic head. The giant red clock on the wall above a particularly wide mirror at their backs informed them that class was officially starting in a measly thirty minutes; time was running out.

Yet, their backs weren't quite to the wall yet; despite their bizarre digression with Iris, that ever-so-silly great witch had managed to leave them behind quite the convenient gift, unintentionally or not.

Yes…the solution to every one of their problems that morning had arrived—pulsing in Colin's hand.

Llyra met Colin's eye. Instantly, he knew what she was thinking, and he jumped back instinctively, clutching the scepter to his chest.

She stared him square in the eye. "Hand over the wand, Colin."

"…no way Llyra. You haven't got a clue what you're doing."

"Oh I don't, do I?" She slipped her bag off, and Colin's eyes widened as she withdrew the spellbook she'd stashed. "…you see? I _am_ prepared."

"…well I'm not." He inched back. "….not prepared to see you blow up the school!"

Llyra crossed her arms. " _Who_ was it who was calling me a witch earlier?" She held out her hand. "… _maybe_ you were right—I _could_ be a witch without knowing it!"

He stared at her dubiously.

She sighed. "…oh come on, Colin—this is a no brainer!" She gestured to the busted robot beside them. "Cherry's right here, we have the wand, Iris isn't here to complicate things, and I've got the spellbook!" She glanced up at the giant red clock on the wall. "We can still fix everything before the assembly ends if we hurry!" She held out her hand once more. "… _just_ give me the wand."

Colin stared at the dragon head, conflict reflected in his eyes.

"…or…" Llyra added. "…we can do nothing, and you can find out firsthand just how _sick with anger_ your dad's gonna be when he hears about the mountain of trouble you've been in this morning…if you prefer that!"

Colin squeezed the wand, fixing Llyra with an expression sterner than her grandpa's when warning her to stay away from their neighbors pigs. "…swear on your life, Llyra…if I let you use this wand, you'll be extra careful with it! EXTRA careful!"

Llyra rolled her eyes. "…I won't blow up the school!"

"SWEAR!"

She sighed. "…okay I swear to Din, I'll be careful. Satisfied now?"

He bit his lip, drawing carefully towards her like she were a floormaster that might pounce if he got too close. Finally, after a long pause that involved the two of them staring each other down, he dropped the wand in her hand.

"…don't make me regret this, Llyra."

She scowled. Maybe if he stopped acting like she were holding Ganon's disembodied head, that would help!

"…start with an easy, harmless spell," he murmured over her shoulder as she began perusing the spellbook. "…In the first place even if the spell works, Sheikah tech might not mix so well with magic spells, so it's better to test with something small."

Llyra wanted to retort that Cherry seemed just fine after being turned into a Reapling and back again via questionable magic (though then again, Cherry _did_ seem unusually quiet now idling about in the hall, so who really knew if there were any undiscovered side effects) but nonetheless she forced her fingers to flip passed the more intriguing half of the book (twas almost a shame ignoring so many interesting spells like transfiguring into a cucco, possessing a statue or splitting into four versions of yourself) to settle on one so insignificant that not even caution-captain Colin could complain. She held up the open page to him with half closed lids.

Colin stared at the title of the page. "…a mustache growing spell…?" He raised a brow. "…for Cherry?"

"…you'd rather I turn her head into a carnivorous lily pad?"

He shook his head. "…okay okay, I guess that's harmless enough."

As Llyra's eyes went to work trying to understand the excessive boxes of text too small for the page, she was painfully aware of Colin leaning over her shoulder the way her annoying neighbor Zill used to do while ten billion unnecessary questions fired from his mouth at once and snot dripped from his nose onto her shoulder. Likewise, Colin's foot was tapping the floor at a maddening pace as he rambled aloud.

"…make sure you read EVERYTHING it says and follow ALL the instructions to a T, and in fact I would read every word four—NO—five times over to make sure I don't miss anything before I—"

"—do you mind?" she snapped.

He scratched his cheek. "…don't you want any help?"

She answered with a glower before whirling immediately back to the book.

He frowned. "…okay, I'll just be over…here if you need me…" he whispered, backing away to the mirror.

In Llyra's humble opinion, whomever had written _The All-Purpose Spellbook: 30th Anniversary Edition_ needed to learn the art of including images every now and then! Didn't this Syrup person know that a picture was worth a thousand words?! There was so much microscopic text crammed into the page that even an encyclopedia on the ten thousand species of wild plants found in the wilderness of Akkala couldn't compete! To boot, the words were nearly illegible what with the excessively swirly flourishes in italics, and practically incomprehensible language like _"Thou Shalt Not Curl Thy Tongue For Lateral, Palatal, Or Postalveolar Sounds But Shalt Allow Thy Tongue To Slide As Would A Wolfos When He Doth Howl At The Moon."_ Where was the short version of the instructions?! The second hand on the clock was ticking on the wall behind her—she didn't have time for this! Besides, all Iris had done when she'd cast her spells was incant anyhow, so wasn't that all Llyra needed here? (The dance poses surely didn't count.)

Llyra's eyes scanned passed all the boxes of text until she found the most distinct one on the page: a two-line rhyme inside the most pretentiously ornate bordered box—That had to be it!

She took a deep breath and raised the wand to Cherry's unblinking, drooping eyes, calling upon every witchy bone in her body (if she had any) to help her spellcast like the fierce witches of her imagination. Then, for the first time in her life, she incanted.

 _"_ _—Dense_ _—as_ _—a_ _—Skytail_ _—of_ _—Cinder_ _—and_ _—Ash,_ _—deliver_ _—thee_ _—a_ _—sturdy_ _—mustache!"_

Silence.

Cherry continued her sideways stare at the wand with that same blank expression.

Behind her, Colin sighed. "Well, I guess that's that. At least you tried—"

"—DENSE—as a—SKYTAIL—of—CINDER—and—ASH," Llyra enunciated more assertively this time, poking the wand into Cherry's eye, "deliver—THEE—a sturdy—MUSTACHE!"

Colin was shaking his head behind her. "…Llyra, I completely take back what I said about you being a witch. You're definitely not one, alright?"

Llyra gritted her teeth. Why did that feel like an insult, all of a sudden? The scepter was starting to quake in her hands as frustration pulsed its way to her fingertips and enflamed her grip.

"—DENSE. AS. A. SKYTAIL—" she began again.

"—Look Llyra," Colin interrupted behind her, "just let it go. I don't think Cherry wants a mustache anyway."

Finally Llyra whirled around, the scepter glowing to the impatience in her eyes. "No, but I think YOU do!"

"WHA—" he barely choked out.

 **"D-E-N-S-E ~ A-S ~ A ~ S-K-Y-T-A-I-L ~ O-F ~ C-I-N-D-E-R ~ A-N-D ~ A-S-H,**

 **~ D-E-L-I-V-E-R ~ T-H-E-E ~ A ~ S-T-U-R-D-Y ~ M-U-S-T-A-C-H-E-!"**

Colin ducked on impulse—lucky for him it was just in time, since a green beam finally did spew from the dragon's mouth and zap the spot where his head had just been—that was the good news; the bad news was what followed when the spell reflected off the wide mirror at his back.

Llyra leapt out of the path of the spell as it came shooting back at her, and she whirled around in time to see it shoot across the center of the giant chasm they'd been dangling in only minutes ago—barely missing the Link statue by a couple of inches—and ground instead on the grandiose portrait that spanned the other side of the abyss.

Llyra watched as the enormous three-eyed face of Queen Zelda XIV grew a bushy mustache as long as Big Bucha's right before her eyes, and a grin cracked across her own face as (notwithstanding her amusement at the Queen's bold new feature) the good news dawned on her…

…the spell had WORKED!

"Hey Colin, did you see _that?!_ " She whirled around with a grin wide as the portrait she'd just hit. "It turns out, I _can_ spellcast! …Colin…?"

Colin's face had turned his favorite shade of pale white, and his mouth had flopped to the floor. "LLYRA!" He snapped, eyes glued to the portrait. "D-do you have any idea what you just HIT?!"

Llyra crossed her arms. "Yeah, a really bad portrait of Queen Zelda? Actually, I think the mustache might even be an improvement—"

"—a PRICELESS portrait! Don't you have any idea who the artist is?!"

She frowned. "Some five year old who likes to paint with his eyes closed?"

He clapped his forehead. "Nono—NO it's by the genius painter Pikango! His paintings are considered artistic masterpieces worth billions of rupees! You can't just…vandalize one of his portraits like this!"

Llyra's brow twitched. Really…so a painting that looked like it'd been rendered using someone's toe whilst trying to play rollgoal just happened to be worth more than everything on display in the entire Hall of Wealth combined? She groaned. "Okay okay! I'll just take back the mustache then. It'll be a good way to practice that undo spell anyway—"

"—no!" Colin snapped. "No more spells—you've done enough! What if you do something even worse this time?!"

"Worse?" she rolled her eyes. "Worse how?!"

"Worse, like hitting the Link statue! Your spell nearly hit him you know!"

As soon as the words left his lips, Llyra's expression changed, and Colin immediately regretted opening his mouth.

"…and what if I _do_ hit the statue…?" The words rolled slowly off her tongue as a gleam of mischief flared in her eye.

Colin's eyes were flashing. "…don't you dare, Llyra, don't you DARE."

Llyra eyed the golden statue—the undisputed crown jewel of the hall, radiating in all its shameless splendor at her—and a smirk snaked its way across her face, keenly aware as she was of the spellbook at her chest, and the scepter pulsing in hand.

 _This_ was a rare opportunity; the perfect test subject was in front of her, and a flood of spells were ready at her fingertips! …what should she turn him into first…? What should it be…? A rat perhaps? (Twas a fitting choice for him) or a cukeman maybe (payback for the times he told her she talked like one…)

Colin lunged at her for the scepter, but she sprung back like a kangaroo. He scowled. "…I already regret giving you the wand, Llyra!"

She grinned, circling at a safe distance from him. "…hey Colin…" she drawled with a casual twirl of the scepter, "…do you think he'd look better as an octorok…or as a deku scrub…?"

His eyes looked ready to pop out of his head. "Oh so now you WANT to get in trouble?!" He stepped carefully towards her as she shuffled back. "That statue represents the very heart of this academy! If you do anything to it—what do you think happens to _you?!"_

"…nothing, if nobody finds out. I'm just gonna test a spell or two out—no big deal…I'll undo it right after." _…Maybe._ She thought with a wry grin.

Colin groaned. "Even if they don't punish you, the goddesses certainly will!"

"Oh come on, what's gonna happen—the statue'll come alive to attack me?"

"It's the principle of the matter, Llyra! Doing something so blasphemous as defacing one if HIS statues—it's utter sacrilege!"

Llyra rolled her eyes. "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe he deserves to have his statue defaced? Quit acting like he's some kind of God!"

"He's a living legend Llyra, he practically IS a God! What do you have against him anyway, huh?"

Llyra opened her mouth and stopped, a hundred reasons to want to roast That Guy all flooding her head at once. "Oh…you want a list?"

Colin bit his lip. From her discolored face (which looked ready to fire a round of ember seeds at him), maybe that was a question he shouldn't have asked.

Llyra raised the scepter to her lips and snarled into it like a microphone. "Let me set the record straight for all those poor, gullible, clueless fans of his—like you, Colin! The truth about your so-called idol is…" She took a deep breath, like she were announcing an anticipated match at a coliseum—and then fired off. "—He eats like a slobbering moblin with a bottomless stomach—he never washes his hands (and Din knows where they've been)—his idea of a shower is swimming in a fishing hole with schools of reekfish that stink worse than an entire pond of expired milk—he sleeps in the same clothes EVERYDAY, not to mention he snores like a walrus…"

If Colin's jaw could've sunk passed the floor, it would have.

"—He NEVER knocks before barging through someone's door—he gambles like a bloodthirsty demon—he roughs up animals for no reason and sets things on fire for fun— " At this point, her words were prickling Colin like bee stings. "Also, he's obsessed with breaking pots. Oh, and he steals rupees from every house he enters—"

"STOP! Enough Llyra!" Colin snapped. "Stop making stuff up just to trash him! Keep desecrating his good name like this, especially in front of the statue, and you're SURE to get some divine punishment from above!"

"No can do!" Llyra snapped back. "I have the right to bad-mouth him as much as I want! I can call him as slimey as a chuchu or ugly as a big octo or deranged as a cucco…and in fact…" she eyed the statue. "…a birdbrained cucco is exactly what he should be! (Where's that cucco transfiguration spell I just saw?)" She flung open the spellbook and was tearing through its pages before another word could leave anyone's mouth.

Colin hasted towards her in a panic. "—no Llyra don't—!"

But her eyes had already found the desired _~Cucco Transfiguration~_ page. She leapt up onto the banister, pinned her mischievous eyes on the sculpture she so disliked, and began her second incantation.

 _"Gold—red—green—or—blue,—turn—this—beast—into—a—cucc—"_

 _Thump._

She was cut short abruptly as something clocked her in the head from above, staggering her backwards off the banister and once more reuniting her with her favorite companion—the floor—only this time with Colin to cushion her fall. (The wand clattered somewhere behind her as they thudded to the ground.)

"See?" he choked out beneath her weight. "What I tell you Llyra! Divine punishment from above!" (But why do I have to be punished too, he wondered?)

"I don't need your smart comments right now, Colin!" She scowled, feeling the bruise throbbing at her forehead, and wiping the fresh blood trickling from it. "What hit me, anyway?" she wondered aloud.

They both cast their eyes towards the suspicious oval object in question as it rolled past their tangled limbs.

"Ohmigoshohmigoshohmigosh, oh no! Ohnohonohonohono!" A soprano voice floated down from the spiral staircase, followed by the appearance of a petite female figure rushing towards them down the stairs; Llyra and Colin hardly had the time to be startled at her appearance as she darted right passed them and went straight to the infamous orb that had hit Llyra in the head, throwing her arms around it like it were more valuable than the Triforce. "I'm so sorry darling, mommy didn't mean to drop you! You'll be okay now!"

Llyra sat up rubbing the bruise on her head, turning to balk at the head of long red hair that had rushed past her. "…Did you…drop that thing on my head?!"

Long red hair turned startled, as if noticing them for the first time. "Huh? Are you talking to me?"

Llyra scowled. "Who else would I be talking to? Your pet rock over there decided to pay a me surprise visit—right here!" Llyra pointed to her bruise.

"Pet rock?!" she gasped, "No, hardly! This darling—" she slide her hand over its surface, "—here isn't a rock, it's my precious Banji!" She hugged it to her chest. "There there, mommy's here now…"

Llyra raised a brow, leaning over to whisper to Colin. "She must have more screws loose than Iris…" her eyes flicked to his, "…don't you…think….…Colin?" She stared at her friend's face; his mouth had frozen agape, his cheeks flushed to the color of sweet shrooms. Llyra groaned and elbowed him in the stomach.

"Ow!" he snapped. "What was that for?!"

"Your inner fanboy is showing."

He smacked his cheeks. "—but —but Llyra! She's just so beau…" He stopped as a trickle of blood streamed down Llyra's forehead. "…Llyra…you're forehead's bleeding."

Llyra frowned, wiping the drops of liquid red. "She called that thing in her hands 'Banji.' So I'd say…she's batshit insane!"

"Oh come off it Llyra, you've barely just met her! Don't be so quick to judge." He cleared his throat, turning back toward the lass with the striking red mane. "Hey…uh…w-what's you're…uh…" Her azure eyes blinked up at his, and immediately his face flushed a shade pinker. "…uh…I-I mean…who are…I-I mean…" Llyra rolled her eyes.

Luckily for Colin's failing tongue, the redhead seemed to have caught the gist of his question. She stood up, the object of menace still cuddled in her arms.

"Oh my apologies, I still haven't introduced myself, have I? Shame on me, a proper knight should always introduce herself properly to others." She cleared her throat, and curtsied.

"A pleasure to meet you my dear comrades! My name is Malon."

o | O | o

* * *

 **NEXT ::** Chapter 09—An Egg of a Redhead (Part I/II)

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

Well well well, Malon joins the scene! I've been dying to introduce her for a while now, as this story can't truly begin without her. She's got a major role, which is why she's tagged along with Aryll and Colin in this story.

Finally a chapter that was shorter! Well, not as short as I want chapters to be going forward, but better than before. Let's see if I can go shorter with the next one!

Concerning Iris, Seres and Phoeni, those three are likely done for a while. Honestly my dislike of chapter 7 is still pretty strong and one of these days it just might be mysteriously deleted, as I feel that it distracted too much from the current story with Colin and Llyra, and also that those three characters would probably be better introduced elsewhere where they're more relevant—though I'm going to leave the chapter as is for now and just move on since I want to focus on the coming chapters.

Now that Malon's here, this current arc of trouble with Colin and Llyra that's been building for a while now (aside from Chapter 7's interruption) should pick up and be reaching its close soon.  
Soon...there will be a LOT more characters around the Academy halls!

Comments are encouraged, I'd love to hear from you if you're reading! :)

/~/ Farosie


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